


Sunrise Over the End of the World

by Sapphic_Futurist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, B.A.R.F. | Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, Blow Jobs, Bottom Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Fix-It, Civil War Team Iron Man, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Hand Jobs, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Pining, Pining Tony Stark, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist/pseuds/Sapphic_Futurist
Summary: When Dr. Strange arrives at an Accords Committee Meeting and warns of the coming of an alien megalomaniac set on destroying the world, the Rogues are pardoned and Tony finds himself exactly where he never wanted to be. Back at the Compound with Steve, who still can't take a hint and won't leave him alone.--In which Tony is broken and Steve finds redemption.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 154
Kudos: 567





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is about intention, impact and accountability. It speaks to forgiveness, and the lengths we need to go to grow and change. 
> 
> A massive thank you to fundamentalblue, who beta'd this so beautifully. She's forever influenced my writing style, and influenced this story to include just a bit more angst. And to resurrectedhippo who cheer read for me and told me everything was perfect, even when I thought it wasn't.

Sometimes, sitting perched astride Steve’s hips while he loses himself in pleasure is like watching the sunrise. 

Steve comes apart painstakingly slow under Tony’s firm touch, building to a peak before breaking and spilling over the horizon. Pleasure stretches along the contours of Steve’s body, illuminating the creases in his perfect skin and shadows in the hollows of his hips.

The lean lines of his torso ripple and flow under Tony’s hands, muscles trembling with exertion and barely restrained desire as he shifts restlessly. Steve pumps his hips at a steady pace, shifting up to meet Tony’s downstroke from where Tony undulates above him.

If you’d asked him a year ago if he could have pictured this, Tony might’ve laughed. He definitely would have laughed. There was no way to anticipate ever feeling this fulfilled. This desired. It was so crystalline clear now that this was where it all ends; that ache that lived inside him can finally subside and disappear altogether.

He’s found it. Somehow, against all odds, he’s found home. Family. Peace. Love. 

Steve wanting him in this incredible, all-consuming way was like someone had flipped a switch he hadn’t even realized he’d had.

Riding on a wave of serotonin, Tony’s contentment feels absolute. Peace and belonging wrapping around him in the warmest comfort he’s ever experienced.

“You are so beautiful,” Steve whispers, one arm tucked around his waist to keep him steady while the other traces patterns over his ribs, sliding higher to brush light fingertips across Tony’s nipples and make him squirm.

“Flatterer,” Tony lets his head dip back and his eyes close as the pleasure builds. “I’m going to put a mirror on the ceiling for you so you have to look at yourself. See what I see.”

Steve offers him a lazy smile paired with hooded, sparkling eyes. When he slides his hand down Tony’s chest, curling between his legs to wrap it around Tony’s cock, Steve lets out an endearing little gasp. As if it were the first time instead of the hundredth. 

“Tony, you’re– I’ve never felt– this is–”

God, doesn’t he know it?

Pitching forward, Tony lets himself be caught, Steve’s mouth hot and wet against his own as he works Steve harder now. Sharp drags of his hips grind them together faster until Steve is groaning and gripping so tight, he’s on his way to replenishing the fading bruises on Tony’s hips.

“Me too, sweetheart.” He breaths, trapping Steve’s hands above his head.

“Tony yes, yes, I–”

Tony jolts awake.

Sweating and gasping, he gags harshly and throws the blankets back. Fully expecting to pitch sideways and vomit onto the carpet, Tony scrubs a hand over his clammy face and shudders. 

All at once, it’s worse than anything he’s experienced. Worse than free-falling from space or drowning in the cave in Afghanistan. Worse than any hangover he’s ever had and the betrayals that have trailed after him his entire life.

Because Steve isn’t there, not really.

Steve hasn’t been there for months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

The immediacy with which Tony hates Dr. Strange doesn’t come as a surprise.

It’s a matter of principle, because it’s hard not to hate a man who strides into a high-level security, _closed_ session with a graceful and unbearable arrogance. Plus, he’s a wizard. The kind of stupid wizard who wears a condescending cape for kicks.

Not that all wizards aren’t stupid, but this one is particularly distasteful when he goes ahead and drops a Pacific-sized dumpster fire right into Tony’s lap and expects everything to somehow be fine and dandy.

Strange puts the cherry on top of the fucking proverbial cake when he spins on his heels, cape moving of its own accord, and struts right back out proclaiming that his job– in warning everyone of imminent threats– is complete. 

Maybe it doesn’t happen quite like that. But it’s damned close. 

Dr. Strange arrives at one of the smaller meetings of the newly enacted and, frankly shaky at best, Accords Committee. The timing couldn’t have been better, and Tony suspects he’s done that on purpose, because all the notable representation from across the globe, and the key players from the World Security Council are present and on edge.

There’s been sightings of the Rogues in Eastern Europe and the Council doesn’t know what to make of it all as the weeks stretch into months and they still haven’t been brought to justice. Unease stirs between the various governments. What if something comes and the Rogues are needed? What if the rebellion of so many of the Enhanced was worth turning a kind ear towards?

The hard-won ground that Ross has managed to hold onto is slipping away right before Tony’s eyes. Whispers of addendums and rewrites and complete overhauls have been ongoing over the past few weeks, at least. Tony isn’t privy to all the private conversations that are being had behind closed doors.

Was all of this worth it?

 _Ross must’ve known_ , Tony thinks, because he doesn’t fight it, just gives the wizard the floor, watching with a mask of blanketed indifference when Dr. Strange speaks. The wizard talks in blunt riddles about a coming threat, greater than Earth has ever experienced, and the potential for the end of the world.

It’s a lot of doom and gloom, centering around some megalomaniac who is convinced he knows what’s best for the entire galaxy. Tony wonders how many times Steve could punch the alien in the face before the end of the world. 

Everything Strange says makes the decisions obvious to everyone except Tony. There’s a moment of polite contemplation but in the end, the vote is unanimous. 

When a flurry of orders and expectations are thrown his way, Tony’s day is turning over on its head so fast his brain spins in his skull. If Strange had wanted to fuck with him this bad, he could have slipped something into one of his drinks instead. 

“I want it done by the end of the day, Stark,” Ross snaps at the edge of his awareness.

Tony’s still watching the flickering of orange, a remnant of the swirling magic Strange has conjured up and stepped through. Magic makes him twitchy.

“Stark!” Ross sounds every inch the bulldog, so Tony rotates his chair in a slow, lazy arc. He keeps his posture loose and at ease. Roguish nonchalance, Pepper had called it once. 

Although he’s pretty sure she meant to be sarcastic.

“Are you listening to me? The end of the day. I mean it. I want flights booked, pardons issued, security privileges reinstated, the whole nine. Get Rhodes on it too, he can update the team and start preparing a training protocol.” Ross prattles off, incessant.

The room has thinned out around them. Tony shakes his head for a second, thinking he must’ve misheard.

“I’m sorry, but I think you must be mistaken. I don’t remember signing anything that said I work for you, now.” Tony snaps.

“Cut the shit. You heard me. If we’re going to war with universe-destroying aliens, we’re going to need all hands on deck.” Where his fists are clenched in his slacks, Tony’s fingernails dig painfully into his skin. Ross gives a heavy sigh and rolls his eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s the least you can do.” When Tony’s frown deepens Ross barks out a laugh. “Get over yourself, no one cares what happened between you and your fugitive boy-toy. This takes priority over everything else.”

Everything tints red.

It’s genuinely hard to tell which pisses him off more. That Ross would imply that Steve was little more than some meaningless, dirty, throw away romp in the sheets, or the fact that he’s so quick to overlook the blatant disregard for international law, the destruction of Leipzig, and, oh right, how Steve had beaten him half to death in Siberia.

Reinstate their _security protocols_? In Tony’s _home_?

Ross can get fucked.

“You can’t be serious.” Tony grits his teeth.

As a heart attack. And you’d better get with the program, because if you pull any of your dramatics and screw this up, I won’t look the other way so easily this time.” At least he has the nerve to threaten Tony to his face.

Tony has been on incredibly shaky ground after the incident at the Raft. It’s not a far cry to picture himself in one of those cells. Life is so surreal these days it’s not hard to imagine that this is all a delusion and somewhere, he’s rocking back and forth in a straightjacket.

“I won’t be held accountable to anything that happens after they get here,” Tony bites out and Ross, who’s already walking away, pauses halfway to the door and turns to look over his shoulder.

“I assume that means you’ll be on your best behaviour, then.”

He breezes out, leaving Tony alone in the middle of the massive circular room, chairs askew and quiet as the dead. The ache in his chest flares with heat and radiates down his arm. Numbness follows, prickling quickly along the tips of his fingers and bile rises in the back of his throat. There’s a very, very good chance he’s going to be sick.

Sagging back against one of the long desks, Tony swallows around the taste of copper in his mouth.

Fucking wizards.

***

It’d been just shy of a year since the Rogue Avengers had taken refuge in Wakanda. Tony had spent weeks ignoring the piece of shit burner phone that Steve had dropped on his doorstep, forcing himself to focus on Rhodey’s physiotherapy and his own slow, painful recovery.

Everything that had been there with Steve once is shoved into the back of his mind, trapped in the smallest box on the highest shelf. Why should he bother thinking about it all, anyhow?

Steve clearly hadn’t given it a second thought when he’d plunged the shield down into his chest.

Tony swallows hard, barking imaginary orders for his brain to consider any other topic, because this one is doing nothing to help with the whole bile issue.

By the time he gets back to the Compound, he has five new text messages from Rhodey, and one from Pepper which turns out to be from earlier anyway; a reminder for dinner that evening that he ignores, for now. 

_**J.R.** >> What the fuck?_

Always so direct, his Rhodey-bear. Apparently, someone had beaten him to the punch.

_**J.R.** >> Is this really happening? Ross can’t be serious._

_**J.R.** >> How can he just do this? After everything that we’ve been through for these fucking Accords?_

_**J.R.** >> Tony? Text me back. Are you still at the council meeting? Is the threat as big as they’re saying it is? It has to be for them to do something like this._

_**J.R.** >> I’d say I can’t believe that they’d do this to you but that’d make me more delusional than Rogers_.

A sixth text buzzes through as he’s sitting at his desk, halfway through his third glass of scotch because if there’s something Tony Stark knows how to do right, it’s a relapse. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t deserve it after everything else.

In his right hand, clenched so tight his knuckles tinge white, is the ridiculous grey flip phone. Taunting him. It would be so easy to destroy it.

 _Sorry, Mr. Secretary, I have no way of contacting him_. Except no one knew he had the burner to begin with and the unspoken expectation was that he’d call T’Challa anyways. The burner phone is just the dirty little secret he shares with the wet marks on his pillows.

It didn’t matter to anyone, least of all him.

He glances down to Rhodey’s newest message.

 _ **J.R.** >> Tony? Are you okay? I’m starting to get worried, man_.

If history has taught him anything, he has at least a couple more hours before Rhodey gets worried enough to start forcing his way through doors. He decides to ignore him, because if he calls, Rhodey will know. Of course he’ll know, because he always knows.

In that gentle and carefully masked voice of disappointment, Rhodey will ask Tony why he hadn’t just called him first. He’ll say ‘that’s what friends are for’ and ‘you’re better than this, Tones, you’ve been doing so well.’ Except really, Tony’s a taker–he knows it, everyone knows it–and he’s been a tragic mess of a person for months. Rhodey has already given too much already.

It’s a blatant excuse, because, in reality, Tony tells himself he _deserves_ this. He deserves to feel numb and forget, just one night, before everything changes. In mere hours, everything will be painful and difficult all over again and right now, relief is as simple as a sharp, tight burn down the back of his throat. 

There is really only so much one man can bear, right?

Tony swallows his denial with another smooth, fiery mouthful and flips the phone open. Taking a deep breath and holding it tight in his chest, he presses dial on the only number that had ever been programming into the phone.

It picks up on the fourth ring, and for a second Tony can see Steve in his mind’s eye, on the other end of the phone. He’d be all wide blue eyes, riddled with disbelief and probably more than a touch of hopefulness. The identical twin to his burner would be dwarfed in Steve’s massive hand.

Even if Steve had been the one to send the phone, he doubts Steve actually expected Tony would call. And of course, Steve never called. 

The line clicks, but Steve doesn’t immediately speak. Instead, he’s greeted with controlled, even breaths. It’s not creepy at all.

“Grab Toto, Dorothy, you’re coming back stateside.” Oops. Can’t blame that on the booze yet.

There’s a brief pause.

“ _Tony?_ ”

“You giving out olive-branch flip phones to all the people you fuck over, Cap? Here I was thinking I was special. Obviously, it’s me.”

“ _Sorry, I just thought you said–”_

“That you’re coming back.” Tony interrupts, purposefully steering his tongue away from the word that keeps coming to mind.

 _Home_.

Steve isn’t coming home, not really.

“Some idiot wizard turned up today and said that Independence Day is on the horizon, and apparently that’s enough for Ross and the WSC to look the other way. All hands-on deck. I’m arranging your flights now, and FRIDAY is encrypting your pardon documents. They should be arriving on T’Challa’s private server as we speak.”

“ _That’s– I don’t know what to say, Tony. That’s great?_ ”

“Which part?” Tony bites out the words. “The idiot wizard? He’s a condescending prick and you’d hate him. Actually, scrap that, you’d _like_ him and that’s honestly even worse, Rogers. Or maybe it’s the part where Earth is about to be decimated, hmm? That must be it, because I know you can’t be talking about how the entire globe is prepared to ignore all the shit you and your pals pulled off this past year is what’s _great_.” The last word floats on a sneer.

It’s an obvious warning, if he’s ever given one. 

Steve sighs, the exhale through his nose too loud and broken across the crappy connection. He’s probably pinching the bridge of it, closing his eyes, exasperated with Tony like usual.

“ _Can we talk about this? Please, Tony? Before we come back, when we get back, whatever you like. I don’t care when, or how, but can we… can we just talk it through? It doesn’t have to be like this sw– Tony_. _I don’t want it to be like this._ ”

“Actually, I’m really glad you asked, Cap, because no. We can’t talk about it. Not now, not later, definitely not when you get back. I may not have a choice over any of what’s happening here and all the things everyone else believes they can tell me to do. But I damn well won’t be listening to you. I don’t care what you have to say, I don’t have the time and frankly, I don’t want to hear it.”

“ _Tony, please._ ”

Somehow, Steve’s still managing to sound calm and pleading. He uses that gentle but firm voice he always did when he was trying to show that he was open and willing. Pliant, maybe, but never quite posing it like a question.

For a second, there’s a hot flash of a memory from the last time he’d heard that voice, with those words. It’s the image of Steve, softly begging, hands had been curled through his hair, gentle, pulling him forward as he thrust into his–

“No,” The finality is meant for Steve as much as himself. 

Tony reaches out towards the bottle of scotch and pours himself another drink, bigger than the others.

“ _I care about you–”_

“We’re through.” Tony interrupts, scathing. “So, here’s what this is going to look like. The pardons give you full immunity from anything that’s happened leading up to this point. You’ll have your regular rooms back at the Compound, with near similar access to the building and its amenities. Rhodey has been heading up the team here, so at least for the foreseeable future you can expect to co-lead the team with him. You can do whatever you like, really, so I want to be crystal clear about this, Rogers. Outside of anything strictly necessary for saving the world, you don’t speak to me. I don’t speak to you. We’re through. It’s that simple.”

It’s disappointing when Steve doesn’t even bother to try after that.

If it wasn’t for the little hitch that Tony catches, a delayed reaction he doesn’t register until Steve’s already moved on, he would have thought his words had had no effect at all. 

“ _And the Accords_? _Bucky?_ ” Steve asks flatly.

“The Accords have been suspended until the threats have been dealt with. Apparently, politics don’t matter in the face of a universal emergency, go figure. As for your little girlfriend, I’m assuming someone there must be assigned to his care. We’ll make arrangements for them to continue to do so when he’s back in the US.” Then, as an afterthought, “is he even safe enough to be here, or should I be preparing for some sort of containment?”

“ _He’s fine._ ” Comes Steve’s stiff reply. “ _He’s been working with Shuri, T’Challa’s sister, and they think they’ve neutralized his programming. But his arm is–”_

“I’m sure Shuri will be able to arrange something for him, then.” Tony interrupts, because there is no way in hell he will ever go near that man or his damned robotic arm ever again. It’s not even about Barnes, not really. But he won’t.

There’s a long, painful pause.

“ _Is there anything else?_ ”

“Actually, yes. I’m assuming that you know where Romanoff is? You’ll have to fill her in on all the details because she’s been MIA since the airport and I have no way of contacting her.”

“ _Of course_.”

“Perfect. You better start packing then, your flights leave first thing tomorrow morning.” A notification pops up on his cell phone notifying him that the documents are already in T’Challa’s possession, and that’s that. 

He drains the remnants of his glass and punches the button to end the call even though Steve’s been about to say something more.

It wouldn’t have mattered either way.

Exhaustion layered with the delicious haze of booze takes over and his limbs feel thick and heavy. Uncoordinated. A quick text to Pepper cancels their dinner plans. In the short time Tony’s been on the phone, the news has already broken.

The Rogue Avengers are returning to the United States.

Pepper’s immediate reply assures him that she understands. She’s worried, but she’ll respect it if he needs to be alone. Then she sends him a surprisingly graphic threat about unmanning a national icon if required and he remembers exactly why he loves her. 

Pepper always understands. God, she’s too good to him.

Rhodey is a little harder to shake, but when Tony eventually promises to call him in the morning, and asks him to take care of the arrangements for when Rogers and his team arrive, it seems to pacify him. Admitting he doesn’t have the energy for any of this earns him a gentle, supportive response. It’s not Tony’s fault that Rhodey assumes he’s going to be getting an early night. 

Instead, Tony works quickly and efficiently through a rushed exchange with FRIDAY.

Security clearances are altered and necessities are ordered. He overrides the master protocols that existed for Steve the last time he’d set foot in the building and deploys a small army of cleaning bots to the individual apartments for maintenance and upkeep that hasn’t been completed since repairs had resolved the hole Wanda’d blown through the Compound.

When his brain is swimming–drowning, really–too much to think about anything more, Tony collapses into bed with his clothes on. Sleep hangs just beyond his grasp and every time he’s about to drift off, he jerks awake with an ache in his chest and his breathing rapid.

Panic is a constant simmer just below the surface these days, but this is the first time in years he’s tried to kill it with whiskey. He doesn’t remember switching to whiskey, but whiskey is good. Whiskey helps turn the hurt back into rage. 

When sleep finally does come, it’s black and all-consuming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

It’s bad form when Tony doesn’t turn up for the Rogues’ return the following afternoon.

Two voicemails from Ross make clear through potentially chargeable threats that he better not be preparing to pull some ill-advised stunt. He reminds Tony that the press will look as bad for Tony as it will for all of the Avengers, and they all know Tony can’t afford that right now. He’d better get his head out of his ass, and quick.

It’s refreshing, being threatened to his face twice in as many days.

Ross is transparent, and there’s something respectable about that. Everyone else prefers to stab Tony in the back. Then lie about it. 

He considers releasing a statement that there’s been some form of family emergency, which is a ridiculous farce because the entire world knows he has no family. He did once, just for a moment, before it all slipped away from him in Siberia.

He doesn’t give a fuck about public opinion on this.

The Rogues returning has everything to do with saving the world and nothing to do with Tony.

Plus, when he checks, the press looks positive so far. Remarkable, really, how quickly civilians will forget betrayal, destruction, and an obnoxious disregard for international law when their safety is at risk again. Though little information has been released on the incoming threat, it’s just enough to set governments on edge, and the media will speculate on damn near anything for a little clickbait.

The US seems prepared to welcome Rogers and his merry band of fugitives back with open arms.

When Tony finally sees them, it’s two days later which appears to have been just enough time for everyone to have readjusted, but not enough time for Tony to be able to yank himself out of his massive hangover. It’s actually a couple massive hangovers because he doesn’t start from scratch, he just starts reinvesting in the buzz midday.

Rhodey takes one look at him, striding into the conference room for their first official ‘team’ meeting, and his jaw clenches.

Whatever.

He settles in a stray chair off to the side of the room because the only two chairs left at the conference table are beside Steve or beside Natasha. From this vantage point, he can at least keep his eye on everyone in the room, and as a special added bonus, he can kick his feet up on the nearby sideboard table. 

Clint is the only Avenger that’s absent, having been granted an extra few days in ‘retirement’ for reasons unknown. Rhodey simply tells him to mind his business and reminds him that Clint is coming to the Compound in two days’ time, which is more than can be said for Peter Parker.

It’s a low blow, and Rhodey had known it, because Tony won’t drag him into this if he doesn’t have to. He’s outright refused, and Peter deserves a bit of rest after all he’s been through. Not to mention he’s a child. A child that has asked to take a step back.

As far as Tony’s concerned, it’s worlds different than Clint, off gallivanting and luxuriating in family life on the farm for a couple extra days. Two more days of comfort than Tony’s been graced with, if anyone gives a damn. 

God, the bitterness could swallow him alive.

“I’m going to assume that everyone has already reviewed the briefing documents.” Rhodey initiates the meeting, his voice a firm projection that envelopes the whole room. “So, let’s run through this as quick and as painless as possible.”

“Dr. Strange couldn’t tell us much about the threat, only that it’ll be here in a few weeks time and it will devastate the world, if we’re not ready. He has little information in terms of the size of the attack or the technology. We’ll need to be prepared for just about anything.” The sound of Captain America preparing for another rousing speech curdles the vodka in Tony’s stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, Rogers, we all know that already. What part of quick and painless didn’t compute for you?” Tony grouses, earning himself a room full of scowls and barely hidden disdain.

Steve eyes him carefully as he continues, but doesn’t rise to the challenge. He’s perfectly professional, not a hair out of place.

“We’ve been in consultation with the Wakandans who are prepared to fight with us. The Masters of the Mystic Arts are prepared to join us as well, wherever the attack launches. But we’re still down two key players, without so much as a lead in over a year. We’re almost certainly outnumbered and our team is fractured, at best.”

‘Our team.’ Right.

“We need to learn to work together again.” Rhodey picks up, leaning forward with his hands on the conference room table. “There was a time where we worked together well, flawlessly, even. It’s going to take practice and time to get there again, time we’re sorely lacking.”

“All that’s well and good, Rhodey, but how exactly are we supposed to be a team again without trust? Without everyone on board?” Natasha aims right for the jugular, her question pointed and laced with a half dozen other questions she doesn’t voice.

She might as well have looked right at him, for Thor’s sake.

“That’ll be something Cap and I will figure out together. Rebuilding trust is going to be important if we’re going to make this work. Half of you have done this once; back when the Initiative was first forming. What’s coming is significant enough that we’re going to have to set a few things aside and do it again.”

“Perhaps a restorative healing approach, Colonel,” Vision says in his unhelpful monotone. “From what I have discerned, this approach would require the active participation and accountabilities of all parties, perhaps in the form of a circle. We would focus on group cohesion and repairing the damage from the fallout over the Accords.”

When there’s no immediate response from the rest of the team, tension thick and chilly between the chairs of the conference room table, Tony takes the set up.

“When we’re done with the healing circles can we also do trust falls?”

Vision turns to look at him with a blissfully ignorant, encouraging smile. “I’m unfamiliar with this practice, Tony. Could you elaborate on its function?”

“He’s fucking with you, Viz.” Sam puts in, and the smile slips away. That’s probably what JARVIS’ disapproval would have looked like if brought to life. If JARVIS had a face.

“We’re not asking you to forgive each other,” Steve says quietly, and Tony takes a significant interest in the dirt underneath one of his nails, mouth tipped down in distaste. “We’re asking you to put aside what you can, for now, for the greater good. I’m sure if the WSC can set aside the Accords, this is the very least we can do.”

Amazing, Tony thinks spitefully, how Steve manages to piece together select snippets of information in ways that worked for him. That the Accords, which he had used not long ago as an excuse to rip their team to shreds, now fell from his lips as a beacon of trust and reconciliation.

It would feel oh so good to punch him.

“Colonel?” Barnes cuts in. “Full disclosure, I’m not prepared or cleared to run drills at this time. I’m havin’ trouble with the arm, and I’m only recently out of cryo. Whatever I can do from the sidelines is fine, but until I have the green light from the team in Wakanda, I’m too great a risk to engage in hand to hand.”

Well. That was unexpected. Tony doesn’t quite know what to make of that.

It’s the first time that he’s heard Barnes speak since the bunker. His voice is different now; it’s soft, unassuming, and laced with a little hint of Brooklyn that Steve only ever lapsed into if he was angry enough.

Rhodey gives him a tight smile. “Thanks, Barnes.”

“And where does Tony fall in all of this?” Natasha asks, voice just shy of menacing.

Tony flicks a lazy look of disdain in her direction.

“Into all of what, Romanoff?” He drawls. “I’m here, aren’t I? You’ve got all the comforts of home again. It’s a damned family reunion.”

“Are we all expected to ignore that you’re drinking again?”

Tony scoffs. “Aside from that hardly being any of your business, let’s be blunt. What exactly are you concerned about? I want to make sure I’m understanding you before I tell you why you’re an idiot.”

“Tony!”

“Oh, fuck off, Cap.”

“If you’re pissed all the time, you’ll be useless in training, and on the field. I can set aside a little disagreement, but I won’t trust my teammate to watch my six if he shows up to a mission drowning in booze.” Little disagreement, Tony’s ass.

He’s missed sparring with her, verbally and physically. Natasha promises a dance of direct strikes and elegant, cutting subtleties that he respects and that keeps him on his toes. Of all of the Rogues, she’s the one he actually wants to forgive.

The why of it all isn’t quite clear, and the way she switches sides so effortlessly is tormenting to no end. But she’s had his back when it’s counted in the past, and despite himself, he misses her. Misses what they’d just started to carve out, before it’d all gone to shit.

He gets a flash of short, manicured nails sliding across the hair of his scalp, head pillowed on her shoulder after a particularly difficult day. The whisper of her pet name for him once. _Anton_.

“Bruce is pissed all the time and does a fine job.” Tony takes a look at the point, then misses it on purpose.

Natasha’s eyes flash. “Don’t play stupid.”

“How about you wait and see before you start making complaints about my performance, alright Nat? I’ve certainly never had any complaints before.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve flinch and Tony’s jaw clenches. Don’t look at him. He’s not worth it and he’ll see right through you, idiot.

Everyone else is eerily silent which is rewarding because they should be uncomfortable. If Tony has to be uncomfortable in his own home, he’s not pulling any more of his punches.

“Jim?” Natasha turns her focus back to Rhodey.

And Rhodey. Well. Rhodey chooses that moment to give Tony a transparent message on what he really thinks of all this.

“I’ll keep an eye on it, Nat.”

Just like that, enough is enough.

Tony pushes out of his chair with a scoff, shooting a pointed glare at Rhodey before he saunters out of the room without a second glance.

The last person he passes is Barnes, who, even in the middle of the room, seems sunken in the shadows. The assassin’s eyes are trained on him, calculating his movements, cataloguing his reactions. It’s chilling and slips through the cracks of Tony’s shaky defenses with ease.

No one follows him, so he makes his way down to the workshop where he locks himself in and pulls up the newest mark of one of the Iron Man gauntlets. The bottle of brandy in his workshop seems like a fitting afternoon treat, and he pours himself a generous snifter.

After all, it’s nice to mix it up from time to time.

***

The first two weeks go by in a blur.

He avoids Steve like the plague, except when they’re running full team drills. Which means he only has to see him daily for about three hours, depending on the set. It’s bearable at first, he dodges Steve’s soulful looks and ignores his name called down hallways.

It’s always the same.

“Tony can we just–”

“Fuck off.” Or sometimes he’ll mix it up. “Fuck you.” Or “Fuck this.” It never gets any further because Steve doesn’t pursue him very hard, and Tony’s gotten pretty good at slipping away just before the drills start wrapping up.

It’s all the hours afterward that Steve takes up residency in his mind and won’t take the hint. The images of the time they’d spent together swirl and warp until he’s not sure what’s happened and what he’s missing. Worse, he can’t figure out where what they had ends, and the lies begin.

It’s maddening and exhausting and it feels like there’s no escaping it. So, he does what he needs to, and goes through the motions when he can. He’s perpetually distracted.

During one extremely unfortunate bout of thorough fair, Tony isn’t totally paying attention during a morning set.

He’s not even that hungover when he freezes up mid-lunge, trying to take down the Falcon who breezes past him. Second-guessing his target gives Steve the second he needs to yank him from out of the air and throw him down onto the mat. Steve, naturally, bears his weight down onto the armour to subdue him and that’s enough.

It doesn’t do any damage, not even a dent or a scratch on the design, and it certainly doesn’t hurt. But in a hot second, he’s back in Siberia, gasping for breath and bleeding onto cold cement.

“Tony, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“Get the fuck off me.” He spits between gasps, desperate to get himself under control. “I’m fine.”

Rhodey’s there immediately, hauling him up and onto his feet.

“We’ll scramble the drill lineup.” He says quickly, as if that’s going to fix anything because it’s _already_ _happening_ , and Tony can feel everyone’s eyes on him. The humiliation is practically wafting off him in bright orange neon.

Look at the PTSD-riddled alcoholic, everyone!

Worse, he has absolutely no idea how much or how little Steve and Barnes have shared with the rest of them, and if they haven’t said anything, he sure as he isn’t going to. There’s no sure-fire way to know what they’re thinking; if they know.

It’s like being dragged across a cheese grater, every nerve ending raw and exposed.

“We’re going to need to figure this out at some point, Tony.” Steve says from behind him. “You can’t just think this is going to get any better if we don’t talk about it. You could at least try.”

Tony seethes.

He spins around with both of his hands up, sweat dripping into his eyes from where the faceplate has peeled back and blurring vision that’s already tunnelled with rage and panic. The repulsors crackle and glow a dangerous amber. If only Steve would just push him a little further. Give him an excuse. 

“If you don’t get the fuck out of my face right now, Rogers, I swear to God I’ll–”

“Tony! Chill out, man!” Rhodey steps between them and adds, quieter, “come on, Tones, don’t do this now.”

He sees Barnes shift forward from the corner wall where he’s been observing the drills, scribbling notes on technique, battle formations and areas of improvement. It’s been his biggest contribution so far, and his notes seem beneficial, Tony can admit.

Barnes has somehow picked up on the fact that he subtly favours his right. Even Rogers had never noticed that, the famed tactician that he was. The Winter Soldier is perceptive and it’s terrifying.

“Stevie, take a step back, punk. You knew better than that.” Barnes grunts, shooting Tony a flat look.

The metal hand wraps around one of Steve’s biceps and pulls him back a few more paces. The fingers seem to catch before they curl, and Tony wonders what kind of shoddy job this ‘Shuri of Wakanda’ has done on the prosthetic he’d currently wearing.

“Buck–”

“We already talked about this. Don’t be that asshole.”

Tony doesn’t know what to make of _that_ , so he collects his scattered thoughts, smacks Rhodey’s hands away harder than he needs to with the gauntlet, and strides out of the gym. His first instinct is to curl up in his workshop with a new project and a bottle, but he’s on scouting duty with Natasha that evening. Fuck if he’ll give her that sort of satisfaction.

When tomorrow eventually slips away and becomes the wee hours of the next morning, he drinks so much he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

Pepper turning up out of the blue when he’s just finished vomiting his guts up is enough to put an end to his three-week bender. The last bout of heaving isn’t from the alcohol, but from shame. It’s infinitely fouler and he’d take drying out again a hundred times over if it saves him any more of _that_. 

Hurt contorts her delicate features and it’s almost more than he can handle tonight. She runs her hand through the sweaty mass of his hair and murmurs soft endearments that caress his cheeks and make him ache. Tony lets her tuck him into bed where she holds his head tight to her chest and lets him gasp through silent sobs.

Rhodey’s called her, and Tony won’t hold it against him.

“This has to stop,” she whispers into his hair, hands firm and soothing as they spin circles over his back.

He can’t even remember the last time he’s been held. Maybe not since she’d come to see him in recovery, after the bunker. Had it really been so long since another person had touched him? Held him close?

 _Steve used to hold you like this_.

Tony gags again.

“I can’t do this, Pep. It’s too much.”

“I wish you had said something sooner. Jim mentioned–but, I just figured when he hadn’t brought it up again that maybe it had been a one-off. You’ve got to let us help you when things get this bad, Tony. We can, and we will.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut, everything in him revolting against the offer and the open love she’s laying down at his feet. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, and I say this as gently as I can, you could stop drinking, for one. Jim said he pinned you?”

“I wasn’t focused.”

“The booze isn’t going to help that.”

Tony sighs. “It’s not helping much of anything.”

“It never does. It never does.” Her words are soothing and a little regretful but there’s not a hint of condescension in sight.

The best thing about Pepper is that she doesn’t push and she accepts him exactly as he is, flaws and all. Hell, she’s seen them all already.

She just kicks off her heels, slips into one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants that droop off her hips despite the triple knot, and climbs into bed with him. Pressing her soft lips into his brow, Pepper gently reminds him to call next time and tells him to sleep while holds him until morning.

Everything becomes more exhausting after that.

Prying himself away from the bottle for the countless time in his life was just as hard as it had always been, and more. On the surface sobriety doesn’t actually change anything. He still feels on edge, stiff and formal around the others when he has to see them and desperately lonely and bitter regardless of whether they were there or not. 

It’s hard to see them all slowly becoming a team again.

Correction, it was hard to see them all becoming _Steve’s_ team again. More and more, Tony finds himself asking FRIDAY where everyone is only to learn that Wanda and Vision and Scott and Natasha are piled in the communal living room with Steve and Barnes, watching a movie or sharing a meal.

Tonight, without even thinking, he stumbles across them all eating dinner together.

Even Rhodey is there, albeit visibly distanced from where he leans against the counter and scarfs down a container of leftovers. Still in his uniform, he looks as if he’s come straight home from a press release.

It was a rare sight, seeing him in full regalia, sharpened by the crisp lines and muted chrome finish of the braces. His presence is a quiet command at any given moment. 

“Tony,” Sam blurts in surprise as he comes through the doorway, announcing his arrival. It takes everything in him not to just turn on his heels and run. “Join us, we’ve got enough to feed an army.”

“Hey Tones,” Rhodey offers him a warm, reassuring smile.

Too many eyes turn to him and the room grows tight and small, shrinking around him. Is the air getting thinner?

The look Steve is giving him alone, guarded but openly hopeful, is enough to make his stomach rebel.

“No can do, boys. But thank you.” He pushes out, light, with a fake smile he can plaster on in his sleep. It’s not like he’s looking, but he catches Steve’s face fall and wonders when he’s finally going to catch a fucking clue.

“Just for a while.”

Steve doesn’t even have the audacity to make it a question, saying it so quietly he wouldn’t be surprised if no one else realizes it was an order.

He’s used that voice with him before, but with a pout on his bottom lip; a ridiculous look on the grown man that calls himself Captain America. He tries to shove the memory away, because it’s almost always followed up with Steve pinning him down, waiting for him to give over, give up, again and again.

That was before, back when Tony never had to put up a fight. Never had to question that Steve holding him down meant anything more than overwhelming pleasure.

He’s not prepared to make that mistake again. 

“Why do you guys even bother?” Tony hears Clint ask as he’s halfway out the door. “It’s not like he’s ever going to put the effort in.”

Just out of sight, Tony leans up against the wall, taking a deep breath and begging his subconscious to hold back the oncoming panic attack. He has shame in droves already.

What should he care if Barton didn’t think he was making an effort? Maybe Tony could rig one of his arrows to blow up in his face later. Oops, sorry Hawkeye, complete error. Must’ve been a miscalculation.

Before the anxiety subsides, he stiffens up when Barnes’ soft, Brooklyn drawl reaches out to him.

“Cut him some slack, he’s doin’ the best he can.”

That doesn’t register, so Tony skulks numbly back down to his workshop to spend the rest of the evening pointedly ignoring a half-empty bottle of booze on the far counter. He can’t bring himself to pour it out yet. He might still need it.

Bucky’s words stay with him, torturing him in a completely different way. This terrifying man who doesn’t know Tony from Adam and has no reason to have his back, has had it anyways. Twice now, not that he’s counting.

The man that has Steve, literally, worshiping the ground he walks on. Bucky doesn’t owe Tony anything. So he chalks it up to guilt over the murder his mostly innocent parents and throws on some obnoxious, loud music to try and drown out his subconscious.

He hammers until he’s exhausted and seeing triples, stumbling half-asleep into the safety of his bed late into the evening.

***

The next morning, Rhodey turns up in the penthouse just as he’s padding his way into the kitchen. He’s slept all of three hours and he has to scrub his fists into his eyes because he’s still seeing three of them. The room smells like coffee, but there isn’t any in his hands.

Oh.

Rhodey pushes a cup of coffee into his grasp and nudges him towards the kitchen table.

“You’re sober,” It’s a simple observation, void of judgement or heat.

“I figured I’d better give my liver a fighting chance before the aliens come.” Tony shoots back, guzzling down his coffee and dragging his eyes up to meet Rhodey’s gaze. He winces, and offers him a meager half-smile.

“You’re a real mess, man.”

“I know.”

“To be honest, I’m surprised you’ve held it together as well as you have,” Rhodey admits and that… well, that actually throws him a little bit.

“What?”

“You have to admit, you haven’t been dealt an easy hand here. And we can all see the way that Steve stares at you. Constantly. It’s disgusting, and a little bit pathetic. Even Barnes’ told him to knock it off this week. Sam says he’s told him that he’s got to let it go and move on.”

“If only it was that easy, sour patch.” Tony sighs heavily, the caffeine giving him just enough energy to shuffle over and refill his cup. He leans against the counter, and starts a new pot.

Rhodey pauses. “I don’t think they know what happened between you, man.” Tony doesn’t bother to fill the space so he cuts to the point. “You’re still in love with him.”

“He tried to kill me, Rhodey.”

Rhodey nods sympathetically. “Yeah, you’ve said, and he’s done a lot of other horrendous things. I’m not saying you have to do something, one way or the other. Just making you a little space to feel what you feel, because you seem to be transitioning out of the whole avoidance and denial stage, or are we still there?”

Tony groans. “Thanks, I guess?”

“If it makes you feel any better, when Sam and I were getting heated after our training session last week–just a bad session, we’ve been workin’ our shit out–Steve tried to step in to defend Sam. We’re mostly good now, so I told him as much and reminded him that, if anyone, he’s the reason for the braces by putting us all on that field in the first place. I thought he was going to pass out.”

For a lot of reasons, that doesn’t actually make Tony feel any better. Picking sides is what got everyone into this mess and he doesn’t want that. Not really. If anything, he just wants everyone not to be so against _him._

That still rips the rug out from underneath him.

It wasn’t ever about anyone having to hate Steve or treat him like dirt on Tony’s behalf. He just wants that same respect paid to him in kind. A little balance. Frankly, at this point, he’ll settle for a begrudging respect for his opinions instead of the entire write off he’s been handed.

Rhodey’s posturing brings a fresh wave of guilt because assumptions will be made about Rhodey’s loyalties and ability to remain impartial. That’ll eventually be blamed on Tony too, but it’s more than that. It’s unfair to Steve and even though Tony’s shouldered his fair share of resentment for the good Captain, Tony doesn’t want to see the guy emotionally destroyed

Maybe Tony Stark does have a heart.

When he genuinely can’t think of a simple answer, Tony switches gears. “Nice that you and Sam are figuring it out. You going to be a guest speaker at his support group?”

“Sam’s actually what I came to ask you about.”

“Honeybear, you wound me. This isn’t just a social call?”

Rhodey huffs a laugh. “No, but I can make you some breakfast and hang around for a bit if you want. We could watch the highlights from last night’s game?”

That sounds like the best thing that’s happened to Tony in weeks. “I’d like that. So, what’s up, sugar bug?”

“Sam’s been struggling with the drop drills, and it’s pretty obvious why. We’ve talked about it, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. I was wondering what you thought about letting him run through B.A.R.F.?”

Not what he was expecting, but actually, not a horrible idea either.

“Someone would have to run him through the sequencing. He can’t use the software alone.” Tony muses aloud. “Would you run it for him? I don’t think he’d be comfortable with me doing it.”

 _And I don’t think I can stand watching you fall over and over again through his eyes_ , he almost says, but doesn’t.

“I’d run it for him.”

“It’ll be hard for him, Rhodey,” Tony runs a hand through his hair and tips his head. “Hell, it was awful the first few times I ran through that sequence I prepared for the MIT grads. I mean, I know _I_ make coping with trauma look like a cakewalk, but it’s going to be tough on him.”

Rhodey chuckles, pushing out of his seat and joining Tony at the counter. He starts pulling bowls and pans out of various cupboards, clucking his tongue when he sees the meager selection in Tony’s fridge. But, obviously, there’s always enough for an omelet.

“He’s a strong guy. I think he can manage it. Plus, it’d give him a chance to let it go. It’s not his fault. It’s not Vision’s fault. Hell, it’s not really even Steve’s fault–yeah, I know, he did a lot of shit, don’t give me that look, man–these things happen in a battle.”

“Wouldn’t have had to be a battle if Cap hadn’t been so selfish,” Tony snaps.

So maybe he doesn’t feel so bad for him after all. It comes and goes in waves.

“Not saying you’re wrong, Tones. You know I’m not. But at some point, this whole thing… it needs to stop being about blame. Don’t you think?”

It’s almost too easy to agree with him, because Rhodey has this reasonable, level way about him that Tony has always envied. He sees the world in vivid shades of greys, where Tony oscillates between stark white and pitch black. Polarized.

There’s just something about the way he says it though, that makes Tony hold back.

“You know, Steve didn’t even apologize. Not once.”

“The letter?”

“It’s bullshit, Rhodey. Seriously. Sure, he says I’m sorry, but it’s just for not saying anything. Not about all the lying that went on leading up to everything, or what he did to our team, or to _us_. He doesn’t acknowledge _us_ at all. It’s written like he thinks I was going to, I don’t know, send it to the press or something.” Tony grips the kitchen counter so hard his finger joints creak. “You know, he told me he loved me. Before.”

“I… did not know that.” Rhodey is thoughtful from where he keeps a watchful eye on Tony’s breakfast. His stomach gives a loud gurgle but it doesn’t ease the tension he feels, even when Rhodey gives him a fond smile.

“He did. Right before everything. I don’t even know if he knows that I heard him, I was half asleep. But he said it. So how do I even begin to make sense of the fact that he said he loved me, spent almost two years lying to me, damn well near killed me, picked Barnes over me–yeah, yeah, I know they’re not together, not the point–and gave me some bullshit about how I was _only doing what I believed in_ as if I’m some empty-headed moron?”

Tony took a deep, shaking breath.

“I would love nothing more than to move past all the blame. If he actually apologized, maybe. I don’t even know if that’s what it’s about.”

Rhodey was silent for a long moment, buttering slices of toast and sliding the omelets onto two plates. They settled back at the table, Tony poking absently at his food. Unsurprisingly, he’s lost his appetite.

“Why not talk to him about it?”

Tony shook his head. “Won’t change anything.”

“Closure, then?”

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses. He doesn’t get it, and a conversation like that won’t change anything.”

Rhodey reached across the table, settling a hand over his wrist and stilling the fork in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Tones.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

***

After breakfast, they opt to ditch the game highlights and instead, Tony takes Rhodey down to where they’ve set up the B.A.R.F. program to run in the Compound. It’s not massive, but Tony has dedicated almost an entire floor to the set up in a way that’s intentional but subtle.

B.A.R.F. makes up the largest room on the floor, empty and pristine with an oversized armchair for maximum physical comfort in such an emotionally devastating environment. There are small off-shoots; a kitchenette and a bathroom, and two more intentional rooms.

One of them has been set up akin to a meditation space.

Tony had been thinking of Bruce when he’d designed it, painting one of the walls in a mural to the Redwood forests that Bruce was so fond of. He had pictured Bruce in here many times since Ultron, folded into crossed legs, eyes closed, head leaned back on the painted wall while he meditated. Sometimes Natasha was there too, collapsing in on herself in a complicated yoga pose.

The other room was more tactile, filled with old fashioned, plush furniture and ridiculous things like bean bag chairs and a mountain of blankets you could drown in if you weren’t careful. FRIDAY had been a valuable consultant, helping Tony to fill the room with anything that might be helpful when it came to ‘self-care,’

Rhodey had teased him mercilessly when he’d found out that Tony had jumped on the whole self-care bandwagon. Until Tony deadpanned that his therapist had thought it was a good idea, and Rhodey had balked.

It was all too easy to get his goat.

In no time, FRIDAY had had a massive shipment of items from weighted blankets, to adult colouring books, to scent diffusers. She’d selected some inspirational quotes that were just on the right side of cheesy, contained in crisp black frames along the walls.

Tony ran Rhodey through the sequencing protocols slowly and purposefully, letting Rhodey practice interrupting the system which was the more significant responsibility, in the event of something going wrong. He fielded a few wayward questions, before they were calling it an afternoon and Tony suggested a round through the massage chairs in the self-care room before they returned to the daily grind.

When he flipped on the switch to the relaxation space, Tony was not prepared to practically jump out of his skin.

“What the _fuck_!”

A massive pile of blanket skitters across the floor as the burly super soldier underneath them scrambles backward and springs to his feet. Tony knows the moment Bucky registers who’s standing there, his expression waffling between defensive and sheepish but landing in a grim mixture of both.

“I was, um, just, uh–”

“We could order a heavier one for you.” Tony blurts out, interrupting the stuttering because the last thing he wants anyone to feel in this place is shame.

There’s a reason he’s built this, and before they’d interrupted him, Bucky had been utilizing two of the weighted blankets, a grounding strategy Tony was familiar with. It had made him feel like he was suffocating when he’d tried it months ago.

Suffocating under a giant, heavy marshmallow. A terrible fate for Iron Man.

Bucky blinks at him. “What?”

“A weighted blanket. We can order you a heavier one, if you wanted. They’re supposed to correlate with your body weight, or at least that’s what FRIDAY says, and I’m sure the whole super soldier thing means that you’d actually benefit from something that was a little heavier than that. Or next time you could pile a couple more on, maybe? But like, don’t smother yourself because that’s absolutely not the point. Unless you’re in that kind of mood, I guess, no judgement. Been there.”

“Tony?” Rhodey put a hand on his arm, stilling him because he was babbling. Of course he was babbling. Bucky made him nervous as hell, and as twitchy as downing eight cups of DUM-E’s misguided take on coffee.

“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind. Thanks. I’ll just get out of your hair.”

Bucky moves to walk past them, when Tony pivots into his space. “Did you want to try B.A.R.F.?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Maybe he’s got a death wish after all. 

“Tony, I don’t know if that’s–” He waves Rhodey off.

“It’s a trauma therapy program,” Tony explains, ignoring Rhodey’s shell-shocked expression.

Bucky’s looking at him as if he’s crazy, and maybe Tony is crazy, because he can feel that he’s much too close but he’s not backing up. _This man could kill you_ , he reminds himself.

But he also knows that Bucky’s had his back in more ways than one already, and it’s the least he can do, really.

“It allows you to basically re-process traumatic memories and do things differently. A “choose your own adventure” if you will.”

Bucky’s still not understanding, clearly, because he doesn’t say anything and just tilts his head, quirking an eyebrow. What was it about super soldiers that makes communication such a challenge?

Cavemen, honestly.

“It’s like this, okay,” Tony starts, and he knows this might not go over well, but, “I had this memory of the last time I saw my parents alive I couldn’t get past. I tried not to remember it for the better part of a few decades. But B.A.R.F. allowed me to replay it over and over again until I was able to make it into something else. Actually, say goodbye to them, tell them how I felt, you know?”

All the colour drains out of Bucky’s face. “Stark, I’m sorry–”

“Not your fault.” Tony breezes on. “Seriously, Terminator, I don’t blame you for it, so you can let that go.” The words tumble out before Tony even realizes that they’re true. “Just think about it, if it would help any. I can send the program information over to Shuri to make sure it doesn’t conflict with whatever she’s been doing with you, or set you back or something.”

Bucky nods, slowly. “Thanks, I’ll, uh, think about it I guess.”

Tony takes two steps backward, safely back at Rhodey’s side as Bucky turns and strides out stiffer than a board. There, that wasn’t so bad.

“What the hell was that?” Rhodey rounds on him the second Bucky is out of earshot. Or maybe not, hard to tell these days between all the super soldiers and arachnid hybrids hanging around.

“Uh, closure?” Tony offers and Rhodey cuffs him on the back of the head before he slings an arm around his shoulders and tugs him into a hug. 

“You’re a weird dude.”

“Eccentric.”

It’s an important distinction.

They laugh together before Tony finishes showing off all the additions he’s made to the floor, fielding the rest of Rhodey’s questions about B.A.R.F. from where he’s sunken into the centre of an over-indulgent bean bag chair.

The tension in his chest releases, if only marginally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

Word of Tony’s generosity gets around quickly.

After Sam starts his B.A.R.F. sessions with Rhodey, things start to shift in Tony’s run-ins with the rest of the team. It shouldn’t still shock him, by now, the amount of himself he needs to give before he receives scraps in return. As if he hadn’t given them so much already, before now. 

What was it about _this_ act that meant Tony had completed enough penance?

It’s Clint, to Tony’s surprise, who approaches him first.

He swings by the workshop one afternoon and gruffly offers an apology for ‘how things went down’, asking Tony if he might want to join him up on the roof sometime soon to run some drills. The moving targets in the gym just aren’t cutting it these days, Clint claims absently, before he’s out the door as quickly as he’d come.

When he throws a quick remark over his shoulder, that it might be nice for old time’s sake, Tony just gapes at the closed door. Had he entered the Twilight Zone? A parallel universe? Did the multiverse actually exist?

What the fuck?

Then Natasha comes down, which must have at least _something_ to do with Clint, because when she appears, she’s got two cups of coffee and a box of donuts. She hovers in the doorway, so unlike her, and Tony rolls his eyes, nodding his head so she knows it’s safe to enter.

“What is it?”

“So maybe I misjudged you.” Her voice is even and soft. Calculated, as always.

“Oh really? Is that generally speaking or did you have a specific time in mind, because if I remember correctly you’ve not always been the best judge of character when it comes to yours truly?”

Natasha sighs and leans against his workbench, effectively cutting off all his access to a new set of arrows he’s been working on for Clint and forcing him bodily into the conversation.

So, what if it would be nice for Clint to have a new style of exploding errors for their target practice tomorrow? Sue him.

“I’m far from perfect, Tony,” Natasha says blandly.

“Yeah, yeah, _“I’ve got red in my ledger”_ and all that, right? Seriously Romanoff, what do you want, because I’m kind of busy here.”

“Can you just give me five minutes, you pig-headed asshole?” The mask of cool detachment wavering. He smirks at the insult as she unruffles her feathers and picks up the pieces of her composure.

“Fine.” Tony throws one of the arrow tips onto the workbench with an underlying petulance and leans back opposite to her, plucking the coffee from her hands. Without breaking eye contact, he takes a long, scorching pull.

“Sometimes I forget that you’re not the same person I met in the beginning,” she murmurs, then hesitates.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“When I met you, you were a glorified child–”

“–Don’t spare my feelings now, Widow.” Tony smirks around the brim of the cup.

“You were a drunk. A sleazy, slimy playboy who didn’t give a second thought to anyone but himself. You had the biggest ego I’ve ever seen and you didn’t think about anyone but yourself. But then I got to know you. Slowly. And I started to see that that wasn’t much more than a façade you hid behind.”

Tony’s eyebrow twitched up.

“You changed a lot after New York, Tony. You made mistakes after, sure. Who of us hasn’t? Some more than others.” She laughed humorlessly. “I started to see this man who was accountable and honest and wanted to make things different. Better. You wanted to _be_ better.”

“And?”

“And I forgot that. Or I ignored it because I was angry–not at you, at everything that’s happened in the last year. So, when I saw you that first day and you were drunk again, I thought… I didn’t put my faith in the man that I’d come to know.”

It’s unfair that she’s focusing on _that_.

He had worked so hard, and made it through so much, without a single drop. Everyone else was allowed to make mistakes. Hell, she’d followed a man that had beaten the shit out of him without blinking an eye, but _that_ was the problem?

“I’m not going to apologize for that,” Tony clenches his jaw so tight the words slipped through like gritty pieces of sand, grinding against his enamel as they pass through. He wants to say ‘you weren’t here, you don’t know what it was like’ but he doesn’t need to defend himself. “I won’t apologize for being human.” _For not being perfect_ , he almost says, but doesn’t. Not her baggage, not the time. 

Natasha lets her head tilt to the side and gives him an even look. “I was angry, Tony. I misjudged you on what I chose to see, ignoring the rest. And I was wrong.”

He sighs. Apologies are never as satisfying when you still want the fight. “Wow. How hard was that?”

Tony prods at the wound, already knowing full well that the way the words tumble stiffly from her mouth, it’s more than he can possibly comprehend. Natasha’s twitches up at the corner.

“I know the past year can’t have been easy on you, either,” She offers, gently.

Tony hums, noncommittal, and glances towards the box of donuts, wondering how rude it would be to reach in and take one. The conversation made him feel uneasy and he wants to go back to hating each other, just to avoid it. 

She pins him with a pointed look and he sighs. It’s not like he’s ever shaken off the Widow easy before. “I’m not mad at you, Nat, not really.”

“You think I picked him, over you, is that it?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Not intentionally. I was with you over the Accords, right up until the moment I realized that it wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t double-crossing you; I wasn’t playing both sides. I genuinely backed your play. But when I realized Steve wasn’t going to quit… someone was going to get hurt, or killed. Not letting them go would have been more than I was willing to sacrifice.”

“Sounds like a cop-out to me.”

Tony gives her a hard look, wishing that he could read her mind and know if this is all true, or if she’s just playing another angle. Every fibre of his being wants to believe her, but he’s been burned so many times. It’s exhausting, these mind games, if that’s what this is.

“Maybe it is. I don’t always make the right call. I’m not perfect either, Tony.”

“You’ve already said none of us are.” He feels his body sagging under the weight of it all, adrenaline draining out through the bottom of his feet and leaving him without any real desire to push her. He’s tired. So damned tired. “I don’t know what you want me to say. We can’t just forget it happened. There’s no going back from this.”

“Maybe not, but we could move on? I don’t know what’s happened between you and Steve–don’t give me that look, he hasn’t said anything. Not to any of us, except maybe Barnes. I know that he… meant something to you once.”

“We’re not talking about Steve right now,” Tony says, unmoving.

“What about you and me? Think we can figure this out?”

“I never meant for any of this to happen.” He ignores the question. “I just want us to be accountable to something more than ourselves. And you know what kills me? That’s not even what this is all about for me. I can handle a little political disagreement. Hell, I’m not even in full support of the damned Accords.” Tony looks up then and pins her with a glare. He’s going there before he can stop himself. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I knew.”

Natasha doesn’t flinch back; she takes it all in stride and stays steady as the wave of emotions washes through him. He doesn’t need to be a spy to know that the twitch at the corner of his left eye speaks volumes.

“And you didn’t say anything? You didn’t think I deserved that much?”

“Like I said, Tony, I am not perfect. I can’t even say that Steve asked me not to tell you–not that I’d ever put the blame elsewhere–I was concerned about what it would do to the team, so I kept quiet. And in doing that, I’ve done more damage. I know it was wrong. You deserved to know what happened to your parents.”

Tony squints and presses his fingertips into his eyes, a headache forming in the centre of his forehead. Forgiveness is a difficult subject, and not one that he’s particularly fond of. But he’s exhausted, and maybe he only has enough energy to hold his ground with Steve.

So he reminds himself of how much he misses her. A few times, until he can feel her fingers running through his hair and her soft weight against him, curled up in a sisterly comfort he’d never known before he’d met her.

The fact that she can admit she’s made mistakes and isn’t perfect is far more than he could ever expect to get from Rogers anyhow. He should take it. Maybe if the world doesn’t end, they’ll come back to it again sometime.

He gives. “Alright.”

“Alright?” Natasha echoes.

“As in, let’s move on. I can’t say it doesn’t sting, Nat. It probably will for a long time. We’ll just try and figure it out anyway.”

“For what it’s worth–”

“If you’re about to say something to me about Rogers, you better tread damn carefully.” He warns.

“I can see that you’re hurting. You may be surprised to see what you find if you change your mind about talking to him.”

“Noted.” Tony grunts. “Now, is that it, because this whole situation makes me feel like I need to go into lockdown for a week and lick my wounds. I’m calling it for today.”

“Okay, Tony.” The words are soft and gentle, and as she brushes past him on her way out the door, she settles a hand over his shoulder for a second. She doesn’t say anything more.

After Natasha is gone, Tony opens up the box of donuts. They’re familiar–a variety of chocolate-covered creations with bright sprinkles and dense dough. They’re from Randy’s, he realizes, and he has no idea when she’s found the time. Or why.

The peace offering is powerful, and he remembers the way she was back then. How different she is now. Maybe that was the point and maybe it’s another metaphor entirely.

Somehow, the gesture means more to him than the conversation. It leaves him aching, a little more feeling than he’d anticipated doing today. When his mind drifts to the next natural though–a stiff drink would be too easy a cure for the flurry of emotional butterflies colliding in his stomach–he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and runs his hand across the cool, flat screen.

Tony calls Pepper instead.

***

The following morning, he almost runs smack into Steve on his way out the door to an SI meeting. Almost instinctually, Steve reaches towards him to steady him with a hand on his elbow and Tony jumps back, heart in his throat. He wills his breathing to settle, because he’s been working on this, really, he has.

Steve looks like Tony’s kicked the living crap out of him (again).

Actually, it’s worse than that, because the explosion of guilt across his features implies that Steve is currently thinking about how _he_ had beaten the crap out of _Tony_. 

This is the first time Tony’s actually seen him this close up. There are dark, sunken circles under his eyes and his face looks tight and tense. He looks awful.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember Steve from before, like this. When he was all soft, sweet edges and bright eyes, turning his loving gaze on Tony so many times on a given day that he’d forgotten it wasn’t just Steve’s normal face. At some point Tony’s brain had rearranged all the schema and Steve’s baseline became crinkled eyes and toothy smiles.

Tony doesn’t even want to remember him that way, anyhow.

“Sorry, you just startled me,” Tony offers, hoping that Steve will ignore it all, keep walking, and let him off the hook. It’s the least Steve could do, right?

“No, of course, I’m sorry. I should’ve–”

“Couldn’t have known I was coming around the corner, Rogers.”

“You uh, on your way out?” Steve shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. It’s an odd look on him, for a man who stands in nothing short of parade rest at any other given time.

It’s an odd look on the man who claimed to love him. Who had held him and cherished him, made a home inside of Tony’s body.

Fuck.

“Yeah, an SI meeting. Pep says if I don’t come to this one, they’re going to stage a coup and kick me off the board. As if that would ever happen.”

Steve’s lip quirks, but he doesn’t actually smile.

“Have a good time.”

“Thanks.”

Tony makes to move past him, when Steve clears his throat as if there’s something more.

He bites back a sigh, because every other time it’s been Steve trying to talk or ask him something he doesn’t want to answer, or even criticize him. He’s just… tired of it all.

“What is it?” Tony snaps.

“Bucky told me what you did for him. And for Sam.” There’s nothing challenging or threatening in his voice. So why does Tony feel so defensive?

The words come out unfiltered. “It wasn’t for you.”

“I know that. Of course, I know that. God, Tony, I was just trying to say thank you. They’re my friends and they were hurting and you could do something about that. I just wanted to thank you for it. Why do you have to make this so difficult?”

“Me? Why do I have to make this so difficult?” Oh, there he goes, his voice is jumping up a few octaves and the discomfort in his chest is slowly building into throbbing agony.

“Tony–”

“No. That’s enough. I’m not doing this now.” He rubs absently at the scar beneath his shirt, swallowing hard.

Steve is clocking his movements but why should Tony care? Steve probably knows now anyway, or at least suspects, and Tony has nothing to be ashamed of. Fuck Steve and his guilty conscience.

“You know, if we just tried, it might even get easier? We could at least figure out some way to exist in the same space.” Steve hisses between his teeth, anger overtaking everything else.

“Just, whatever Rogers, I told you I don’t care what you have to say, no matter what it is. Even if you just want to thank me. I couldn’t care less, understand?” He spits the last word at him.

“Never took you for a coward, Tony,” Steve calls after him as he’s darting down the hallway and wow, that’s rich. That’s just excellent.

Going back to an original hallmark, he throws a chilled, “fuck you, Rogers,” over his shoulder for good measure.

Tony doesn’t stop until he’s safely inside the car, barking orders to the driver before he folds in on himself in the backseat, shaking and gasping for breath.

Fucking Steve.

He does the deep breathing and thinks the happy thoughts, but it doesn’t make a dent in the weight that sits on his chest and crushes him all over again. It doesn’t fade until he’s walking through the doors to SI and Pepper’s calming face is greeting him, not asking any questions, just being a calm, soothing, warm body next to his own.

Thankfully, his meeting takes longer than anticipated, and Pepper insists on getting coffee afterward, which means by the time he’s back at the Compound it’s near dinner time.

FRIDAY advises him that the team is gathered together in the common space, debating over what to order for dinner, with only Lang and Rogers absent.

Lang, she supplies, is visiting with his daughter for the evening, and Rogers has been called away on an independent mission. Somehow, even that irks him, because this whole thing was about being ready and prepared for an invasion and Steve thinks he can just fuck off to god knows where whenever he likes?

Arrogant. Self-centered. All the other negative words Tony can’t fully think of right now.

But the fact that there’s absolutely zero chance at a Captain America altercation means Tony lets himself join the team for dinner. The first time since they all came together. 

They’re just placing an order for pizzas when he does, and when Natasha sees him settle into an armchair across from Clint. She shoots him a small smile, and adds his favourite, from memory, into the already obscenely large order.

Their local pie shop must be thriving these days.

“Tell us yours, Stark,” Wanda draws his attention, drinking from a can of pop that Tony doesn’t recognize, realizing that it’s in another language. Sokovian maybe. He wonders if she’ll share one, later.

“Sorry?”

“We’re trading stories about when we met Fury for the first time.” Rhodey fills in.

“Not much to tell, really. He broke into my house and stood in the dark for a couple hours until I got home. It was very Slender-Man meets fangirl stalker, really. I felt unsafe. Plus, I think he told me I was arrogant to think I was the only superhero in the world, or something like that,” Tony chuckles lightly.

“Tell them about the big donut!” Natasha prompts from the table, smirking over the beer in her hand before taking a long pull from the mouth of the bottle.

“Or how you asked him whether or not you should look at his eye, or his eyepatch.” Clint teases.

Tony throws his hands up in front of him and lets them fall with a slap against his thighs. “I was just trying to be respectful!”

“Sounds that way.” Wanda smirks at him, looking younger in that moment. She’s so different than the woman he’d visited in the Raft a few months ago. Being here has been difficult for her, too, and Tony can appreciate the effort she’s putting in.

“What about the first time we all met Stark?” Bucky calls from across the room.

Tony glances over his shoulder to meet his eye and sees a small, cheeky _something_ on his face. It can’t be a smile, can it?

He knows exactly what Bucky’s going to say, and he can almost hear the reaction. In hindsight, maybe not his best moment?

“Nat’s is the best,” Sam pulls the focus away.

“He looked me over and told Pepper, ‘I want one’ after he finished drooling all over my shoes.” Natasha laughs. “God, you were such a pig, remember?”

“The way I remember it, _someone_ was sent to honeypot me so I stand by that initial reaction,” Tony leans back in the chair and crosses his legs at the ankle, flicking a smirk in Natasha’s direction. “Plus, I still want one.”

“Don’t be gross,” Clint throws the TV remote at him to bean him in the head, except he snatches it out of the air before it makes contact and hucks it back.

“Mine’s still better.” Bucky saunters over and drops down on the floor by Clint’s feet. “He called me the Manchurian Candidate.”

There’s a series of gasps and _Tony’s!_ before everyone starts cackling.

Bucky wears the biggest grin of them all and that’s maybe the first time he’s really seen the man smile. There’s nothing tight about it, either. Bucky is open and warm, putting in real energy that should throw Tony, but all it does is make him feel more at ease. Seems that everyone is trying these days.

Take that, Steve.

“Everyone gets a nickname here,” Tony chirps back. “It’s the law.”

“I prefer Terminator, then,” Bucky challenges, and Tony tips his head in answer.

It’s not long before the pizza arrives and they crowd around the long dining room table, which, Tony realizes, is going to need more chairs. There’s only a half dozen left empty, four of which could easily be occupied at any given time by their absent Avengers and Parker. Not to mention significant others, ex-SHIELD agents, and certified extended family members. Happy, Aunt May, Pepper, Rhodey’s mom.

It feels good. Really good, even.

Tony gets a sharp twinge, nothing more than a glimmer of a forgotten feeling.

When he thinks about it later, it makes far more sense. It’s not until he’s crawling into bed that night that Tony realizes that under all that ease and laughter and happiness, he’s missing Steve.

Or maybe missing past-Steve, the way things had been before, when they had all curled into each other in the Tower, covered in blankets and half-open candy boxes, watching a shitty action movie. The rest of the team might’ve been there, or it might’ve been just Tony and Steve. No matter, Steve had been the constant and despite himself, a part of Tony wanted him there tonight. Which would have meant he couldn’t let his guard down and relax, and he wouldn’t have stayed long in the end.

That doesn’t stop the wanting.

He crawls into his bed and doesn’t sleep. The flip phone sits in the nightstand of his bedside table and taunts him. There have been missed texts on it sporadically since Steve came back to the US, usually variations of apologies and requests to talk.

Tony has ignored them all until tonight. Tonight, he feels weak.

 **_S.R._ ** _> > This isn’t easy for me, either._

That one had come in not long after their run-in in the hallway. It’s been sitting there, unopened and unanswered with all the rest, for more than a few hours.

 **_T.S._ ** _< < I don’t give a damn._

 **_T.S._ ** _< < You made your bed. Lie in it._

 **_S.R._ ** _> > We meant a lot to each other once._

 **_T.S._ ** _< < Fuck you._

 **_S.R._ ** _> > Just admit it. I know you well enough to know this is hurting you just as much as it’s hurting me. You can’t hide behind all this anger forever, Tony._

He doesn’t grace that with a reply because ‘just as much as it’s hurting me’, really? Steve can’t possibly think that.

 **_S.R_ ** _. >> Can we at least try and move on? Say whatever needs to be said so things can just be… neutral. The hostility is too much, Tony._

 **_S.R_ ** _. >> Just because I don’t want this to be over, doesn’t mean I won’t try and make it easier if I can. Whatever you want, at this point._

 **_T.S._ ** _< < You make everything harder. You always have._

He almost adds, ‘and when have you ever cared what I want’, but doesn’t.

 **_S.R._ ** _> > You haven’t been a walk in the park yourself. Please. Just give me the time of day. I don’t want to let this go. I don’t think you want to either, honestly. But at the very least, let’s try and put it aside or behind us or whatever you want. For now._

 **_S.R._ ** _> > How can we even expect to fight together like this? It’ll end up getting us killed._

 **_T.S._ ** _< < I won’t let you get killed._

 **_S.R._ ** _> > I don’t want you to die either, Tony._

Tony snorts, because of course Steve. Of fucking course.

He snaps the phone shut and ignores the vibrations that follow, letting them drown in the back of his nightstand. It’s not that he doesn’t feel the same–of course he does. That’s the entire problem; as much as he wants to get past this, move on, accept the fact that for whatever reason he wasn’t _enough_ for Captain fucking America, Tony couldn’t.

He was stuck.

And he doesn’t want Steve to die either because he’s in love with Steve, despite his better judgement and everything he’d come to learn about the world in these past few months.

When he tries to sleep, later, exhausting himself with an argument he’s probably had with Steve a million times in his head already, sleep actually comes. It’s soft and gentle, so unfamiliar after the months of barbed nightmares.

Maybe it’s talking to Steve before bed–it must be, really–that leads him to dream about him.

Steve is wrapped around him. All over him. Touching him everywhere and kissing him until he’s breathless. When he leans over him it’s welcomed and familiar, setting Tony’s senses on fire. There’s no fear here, and Steve is looking at him as if he’s the rarest gemstone on earth, all open awe and amazement.

Everything else is fuzzy behind Steve, but it feels familiar. Maybe they’re in their bedroom in the Tower, sinking into the oversized mattress. 

Tony jolts awake too soon, a hard-on rampant and demanding attention between his thighs for the first time in months.

He reaches into his sweats and fists himself, rough and dry. It’s too tight but in seconds he’s coming hard, thinking about Steve’s bright blue eyes and the sweet taste of his mouth. 

As quickly as it comes it fades, leaving a lingering sensation of pitiful desperation that makes Tony want to retch again.

Love is a stupid fucking curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

Rhodey is glaring into the back of his head, he just knows it.

“You need to bring in the kid.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“You don’t _wanna_?! Come on man, don’t start with that.” Rhodey’s exasperation makes him smirk from where he’s looking down at Sam’s flight pack.

The wings are spread across one of his longer work-benches, and he’s been trying to work out some of the kinks, maybe add a little more firepower, even.

The schematics make sense, but he just can’t quite get it right without Sam feeling like he’s lilting to the left. At this point, Tony is pretty sure Sam _favours_ his left, and he needs to recalibrate his body so Tony can move on to other, more pressing projects. 

“He said he wants to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, so that’s what he’s going to be. I’m not pulling him in again, platypus.”

“There won’t be a neighborhood for him to get friendly with if aliens wipe out the planet,” Rhodey points out, because he’s rational and a realist that way.

“I don’t want him to get wrapped up in all this.” Tony jabs one of the wings in frustration, leaving a scratch he’ll buff out later. Or maybe he’ll leave it if Sam says it’s still not right. “He’ll get hurt, Rhodey.”

Rhodey sighs, stepping into his space and clicking a button on the base of the flight pack that causes the wings to snap back into the base, almost taking off one of Tony’s fingers in the process.

“Hey!”

“Don’t you think that’s his decision to make?”

“I’ve told him–”

“You’ve told him the Rogues were coming back,” Rhodey cuts him off. “That’s literally the smallest part of the picture. He doesn’t know enough to even make an informed decision at this point.”

And okay, that’s true, Tony hasn’t told the kid everything. The bare minimum really. Need to know basis only, Ross had said after all. Plus, the kid had been so fired up just hearing that the other Avengers were coming back, Tony hadn’t had the heart to tell him much more.

When Tony doesn’t reply, Rhodey runs a hand across the short-cropped hair on the top of his head, drawing attention to the silver that lines his temples more and more every day. How many of those grey hairs are because of him?

“Have you ever thought about dyeing your hair?”

Rhodey glares at him. “Wow, that’s rude. And no. Honestly, Tony, if you don’t tell him, I think I’ll have to do it for you. Steve and I have talked about it; we need all hands on deck and he at least deserves an opportunity to train with the team and get familiar with how to fight with us. You know he’ll get pulled in, either way. Why wait until there’s an alien invasion strolling through Brooklyn?”

“Peter’s from Queens.” As if that’s what really matters here, “and I guess if you and _Steve_ have decided that that’s what’s best, then I don’t really have a choice in the matter, do I?”

“Come off it. It’s professional. Strategy. I’m not backing his call; we both think this is the right decision, and we think you’re the one that needs to bring him in.”

“Fine. I’ll call him.”

Rhodey pats him firmly on the back, and clearly sees the worry that’s bubbling just below the surface because the pat turns into a grab and Rhodey’s pulling him into a hug. It lasts just long enough that Tony feels the anxiety ebb off at the top.

Rhodes leaves him in peace for the rest of the afternoon, and he’s definitely stalling on calling in Peter, more so because he needs time to emotionally prepare himself.

Peter had been so angry when Tony had told him the Rogues were coming back. It had been a toss-up between the fact that Peter had had to find out about it all on the news, and the fact that Peter was one of a half dozen people who knew what had happened in Siberia.

The former wasn’t Tony’s fault, the news had broken quickly, and he really hadn’t had any time to spare to call Peter.

The latter technically also wasn’t his fault, because T’Challa couldn’t have known, when he called Rhodey to tell him that Tony needed immediate medical attention, that Peter would have been at the Compound. Dr. Cho had been there already, called in to assist with Peter’s rapid healing and monitoring his progress after he’d taken some hard hits in Germany.

So, it wasn’t really Tony’s fault that Peter had seen him, broken and bleeding, barely conscious. He wasn’t even sure what Peter really knew about the whole ordeal, hearing but unable to really process the snippets of information T’Challa had shared with Peter and Rhodey by the time he’d gotten Tony back to base. 

Except it is all on him because Tony brought Peter into all of this in the first place. Peter has brought so much to his life since then, but the guilt of what Tony’s given him in return is building into a mountain the corner of his mind.

When Tony finally works up the nerve to call Peter, he’s eager and willing, more than happy to drop everything and web his way over to the Compound, really, Mr. Stark, he’s not busy in the slightest! Tony sends a car for him instead because it’s a bit of a trek, even for Spider-Man, and he arrives just before dinner, when Tony will introduce him to the team.

He takes the kid back down to the lab first, and tinkers while he talks.

Peter is… surprisingly unsurprised when Tony ‘spills the tea.’ He elaborates that he’s known something was up, because why else would the Rogues have been pardoned? Why else would international law be conveniently ignored, even for a short while?

Peter holds a grudge almost as tightly as Tony himself. Not quite what he had been thinking when he’d used the word protégé.

“I do have a question,” Peter says, almost as an afterthought, and Tony offers him an encouraging grunt. “When you say Wizard… do you mean like, Harry Potter wizard or Gandalf wizard?”

“Definitely a Voldemort wizard,” Because seriously, fuck the wizard.

Peter snorts. “If that’s not really true, then that’s kind of rude, Mr. Stark.”

“When you meet him, you can decide for yourself,” Tony snaps back, but it’s teasing and void of any bite. “Any more questions, kid, or are you ready to meet the rest of the team? Before you can handle meeting a wizard, you’re going to need to make it through this band of freaks and weirdos.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Are you really okay? With him–them? Here?”

Tony sighs, twirling a multitool over and over between his fingers. He doesn’t look up, because Peter’s a smart kid and he’ll probably see right through him if he does. Even though he’d never said anything, Tony was pretty sure that Peter was aware of his history with Steve.

The question feels loaded and it sets off his internal defense system. But this is Peter.

“It’s better than it was a few weeks ago,” he lands on, simply because it’s the truth. “Things with Barton and Nat are a lot better. You’ll probably get on great with Clint–which I’m going to hate by the way–fair warning. Barnes isn’t so bad. A little bit gruff but if I’d been a P.O.W. for seventy years I’d probably be a bit rougher around the edges too.”

He purposely doesn’t comment on Steve.

“Just let me know if you need backup, Mr. Stark,” Peter offers, too stern for his own good.

“It’s all going to be fine, Pete.”

Peter seems to accept it, and as Tony leads him back out of the workshop and up to the communal floor, FRIDAY notifies them that the food has just arrived and the team is assembling for dinner. Pete rambles on about new features he’s been thinking up for his suit and Tony promises to add them all.

It’s not until the elevator opens that Tony realizes his heart is back in his throat.

Everyone together for this; Wanda and Vision, Scott and Clint all seated around the table already, with Bucky and Rhodey arguing about something with Nat in the living room, arms waving in animation.

Steve is in the kitchen with his back to them.

Eight sets of eyes turn to look at Peter and he’s stiffer than he was a minute ago, back straight. Tony keeps a firm hand on his shoulder, though he’s not sure if it’s meant to benefit Peter or himself.

“Avengers,” Tony says loudly, not that he needs to draw their attention. “Meet the kid. Peter Parker aka Underoos aka Spider-Boy. Spider-Kid, meet the team.”

“Mr. Stark, seriously.” Peter shoves his hand off his shoulder but shoots him an embarrassed little half-grin that Tony returns with a shit-eating one of his own. “It’s Spider- _Man_ , and uh, it’s nice to meet you all, officially, and in a chiller setting this time.”

Clint laughs openly, immediately breaking any tension in the room.

“I like this kid already, Stark.”

“I told him you would.”

“You know, at first I was pretty sure that white stuff was comin’ outta him,” Sam’s the first to stride over and shake Peter’s hand. Peter returns the grip firmly, his face open and warm without a hint of reservation and in that moment, Tony is so proud of him. Peter is better than all of them combined. “Sam Wilson, the Falcon. And to be honest, I’m still not completely ruling it out.”

“I’ll show you how it’s made, sometime,” Peter promises.

The rest of the Avengers slowly come forward to fan around him, shaking hands and making introductions. Steve and Bucky are last, Steve coming forward and offers a handshake. It’s the only time Peter’s beam falters, but he recovers quick enough that Tony thinks only he and Steve have really noticed.

Steve’s face is unreadable.

“It’ll be nice to work with you, Peter,” Steve offers, and Peter doesn’t reply, just nods his head sharply before his eyes flick over Bucky, standing not too far behind Steve.

The chiming of Steve’s phone in his pocket draws him away before the exchange goes any further. Tony doesn’t watch him stride out of the room, exchanging sharp words with someone on the other end.

“Wow, that’s so much cooler up close,” Peter reaches out to shake Bucky’s hand but barely even glances at his face as he takes in the length of silver prosthesis and weaponry.

“Everyone wants to see the arm, no one wants to get to know the guy attached to it,” Bucky grumbles, but there’s a softness in his tone that puts Tony at ease. He must have come along way, he thinks, because he trusts Bucky with the kid.

“Stop whining!” Natasha puts in from across the room.

“Can I take a look at this later?” Peter blurts, “if you wouldn’t mind Mr. Barnes, Sgt. Barnes, Winter Soldier, uh, sir? I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s amazing.”

“Bucky’s fine, kid. And I guess?”

“Peter’s almost as much of a genius as yours truly,” Tony supplies, when Bucky’s looking a little dazed and confused, his arm being accosted now by two deft hands.

“Oh, good, maybe you’ll be able to help me then. It’s been pinchin’ at the shoulder like a motherfucker and the resident genius, who apparently doesn’t mind _remindin’ us_ that he’s a genius, has refused to look at it.” Bucky’s seems to be trying to keep his face neutral, but the twitch on the right side of his mouth gives him away.

“Hey!” Tony exclaims, but he has no leg to stand on because it’s true.

“Mr. Stark can kinda hold a grudge,” Peter tips his head in sympathy, but his eyes, when they turn on Tony, are light and teasing. “I’ll take a look at it for you. Can’t promise I can fix it, but I’m pretty good with chemical compounds–maybe there’s a way to lubricate where it meets the shoulder and –”

Tony stops listening because Peter’s jumped right into a whole slew of potential solutions. He settles across from Nat at the dinner table, eyes flicking back and forth to the door, watching for Steve.

“You’ve got a good kid, there.” Nat gives him a tiny, knowing smile.

“Not my kid.”

“Right, obviously.” The sarcasm rolls of her tongue, thick and lilting.

“I’ll admit, there does appear to be a special, paternal sort of way that you react to young Mr. Parker,” Vision adds unhelpfully, and Tony squirms a little in his seat, saying nothing.

Wanda laughs softly. “It’s sweet, Stark.”

“Yeah well, he’s a good kid and I figure the least I can do is teach him a few things and build him a suit he won’t die in. He was wearing a onesie when I found him.”

“It wasn’t a onesie!” Peter pipes up from across the room, drawing everyone’s attention to his heightened sense of hearing. The young arachnid blushes lightly. So endearing.

To Tony’s surprise he actually has a couple of the plates popped off of Bucky’s upper arm and is peering inside.

“Gross, no dismemberment during mealtimes,” Clint flicks a piece of the arm off the table and back towards Bucky. It bounces off his chest and onto the floor.

“Don’t touch my parts.”

“Don’t leave your parts on the table.”

Clint mutters something else that Tony doesn’t catch, but by the way Peter’s cheeks darken into tomato red, he’s safe to assume it was unsavoury.

“Mr. Stark, you need to take a look at this. It’s amazing. It actually might be better than the prosthetic braces you’ve been working on for Colonel Rhodes.”

“ _Excuse me_?” Tony all but screeches, hopping up from the chair and crossing the room. He drops down at Peter’s side on the carpet, and tugs Bucky’s arm towards him for a closer look.

The inner workings of the arm are a complete disaster, not unlike the outside, and Tony’s doesn’t even understand how Barnes survives with the unfortunate heap of metal.

Rhodey cackles from across the room while Bucky stares down at him in surprise. He’s worse than Peter, Tony realizes, eating up every inch of the road map that Bucky’s arm shows him. There are so many possible solutions. He could make something so much better than this.

“Pay up, old man,” Peter quips.

Tony narrows his eyes when Rhodey slides a twenty under the spot Peter often occupies at the table.

“Traitor,” Tony points a warning finger at him.

“While you’re here, Stark, maybe you could actually give this a once over for me?” Bucky’s voice is even and steady but there’s a hint of hesitation behind his cloudy eyes.

Peter glances up, expectant, as he pops off a few more plates, peering inside at the complex web of the inner wiring. It hits him all at once; the prosthetic wasn’t meant to be a weapon at all. It was a hastily thrown together thing and a poor substitute in comparison to the one Tony had blown off.

That’s exactly the point. Maybe Shuri has something else in the works for him back in Wakanda. But all the same…

“What do you say, Petey? Maybe we can build him something better together?”

Peter all but beams up at him.

The rest of the room is watching the exchange in varying stages of obviousness and Tony knows what this is. What it must look like. Peter fucking Parker bringing everyone back together. Mending fences and all that jazz. Maybe it’s time.

The arm plates are popped back in, and the dinner plates are distributed across the table. Everyone settles in and starts to eat, but Steve is still absent. Tony’s noticed that he’s been absent a lot the past few days, since their run in in the hallway.

He hasn’t been called away on any more missions, but all of a sudden, he appears more preoccupied. Tony tells himself that he doesn’t care, but that’s clearly a lie, because where on earth could their fearless leader be sneaking off to for long periods of time?

Steve had missed at least three of the last seven meals which, maybe that was okay, because Tony had gotten to enjoy three more meals than he would have, two of which were homemade. The feeling of being more at ease in his own home is a nice treat.

What should he even care about Steve’s comings and goings? He doesn’t, he tells himself, not really.

Eventually, when the food gets cold and the chatter starts to die off, Tony pushes away the nagging thought that Steve might return after all. 

Peter is making excuses for why he really needs to be getting home, even though Clint and Sam are already at him to commit to a day to spar with them both.

“I don’t know man; I don’t buy it.” Sam is saying. “I think you got lucky, y’know? We’d never fought against you before so you clearly had the upper hand with that web stuff. I want a do-over, and this time I won’t go so easy.”

“We should test how good those senses stand up against my arrows.” Clint’s fingers twitch as if he’s prepared to reach behind him and grab arrows that aren’t there.

“Oh, yeah Parker, you think you could take me down while Clint’s shooting at you? There’s no way.”

Clint snorts. “Fifty bucks says you won’t last five minutes.”

“You’re on.” Peter shoves a hand at Sam first, then Clint, and Tony’s just sitting there rolling his eyes.

“Mr. Parker is not of age for gambling. It would be ill-advised to expose his developing mind to such a risk,” Vision interrupts them, and Peter’s eyes go impossibly wide. As if he isn’t an enhanced, radioactive spider superhero who’s already fought Captain America and will quickly be preparing to defend earth against an unknown alien invasion the same as the rest of them.

Vision’s priorities seem a bit skewed, to say the least.

“Bit late for that, Viz,” Bucky coughs dryly. “Might as well ply him full’a booze, gamble away his allowance, and treat him to a night at the gentlemen’s club at this point.”

“I don’t really like dancing, Bucky,” Peter gives a small frown and the reference lost in translation between the two generations has everyone laughing again.

Peter says his goodbyes and makes his way towards the elevator.

It’s when Tony realizes he hasn’t heard the ding of the elevator doors that it occurs to him Peter’s been held up. He can see him, but not hear him, just on the other side of the threshold talking to Steve. They have a quick exchange that Tony can’t make out, but Steve’s face, turned towards Parker, is tense and carefully blank.

When the exchange ends and Steve makes his way back in, he’s pale and drawn, refusing to meet Tony’s eye. They sit in silence, lost in the conversation around them.

“Peter’s a good kid.” Steve eventually offers when some of the Avengers have thinned out and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore each other. “He cares about you a great deal.”

It dawns on Tony that this is the longest he’s been in Steve’s vicinity where Steve hasn’t tried to talk to him about them, order him around, or make amends. The burst of energy that runs through him makes him twitchy and his fingertips start to prickle with pins and needles.

He takes deep, steadying breaths.

“Yeah,” Tony replies, lamely.

“We’ll all look out for him.”

“He can take care of himself.” The words come out harsh and biting. Why can’t he just be fucking normal for one goddamn minute. Not everything has to be a fight, Stark. 

“That’s not what I–” Steve groans and runs a hand through his hair. “I just meant that, he’s going to be looking out for you. The kid’s loyal. So, it’s the least we can do, as a team, to look out for him, because he’s new to this and, uh, like I said, he’s a good kid.”

It’s so strange, hearing Steve ramble. Always so self-assured and confident. The man with a plan, every word that leaves his mouth selected with intention and precision. Steve looks more exhausted than ever.

Bucky saunters over behind Steve’s seat, and gives him a whack to the back of the head, hard enough that Tony thinks it should hurt, but Steve doesn’t even flinch.

“Stop bein’ weird.”

“Shut up, jerk.”

“Peter isn’t that weird little neighbor kid you were obsessed with.” Bucky shoves Steve further down the couch so he can sit beside him. There was already plenty of distance between them, but Bucky has made it more obvious with the hard lines of his body. “He doesn’t need you lookin’ out for him. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“I wasn’t obsessed with him. And his name was Thomas.” Steve’s got a small, wistful smile on his face that hints at a Brooklyn summer afternoon.

Bucky snorts. “You used to follow him around everywhere.” Bucky directs his attention to the room. “Thomas was a scrawny little fella, smaller than Steve even, and he walked on crutches most days. Steve made it his mission to keep him safe from the neighborhood bullies.”

“Someone had to,” Steve argues, and Natasha and Sam groan.

“Just made my life harder.” Bucky props a foot up on the table and Tony thinks it’s a barrier if he’s ever seen one. “Because then I had two scrappy little twigs to look after. Damn, am I glad things have changed. Actually, why don’t you focus on looking out for me now, punk?”

“Pretty sure that’s taken up enough of my time already, Buck,” Steve reminds him affectionately, briefly resting a hand on his shoulder before he curls it into a fist and gives him a playful slug across the arm.

Tony feel just cold and empty.

Bucky segues the conversation into a story about his little sister, who Steve had apparently been fond of–and sweet on, depending on which of them you asked. Tony sits quietly, numb hand folded in his lap beneath the other, listening and forcing himself to be still.

He can handle this.

If anything, it’s exposure therapy, because this is exactly what Steve had wanted in the first place. This is what was worth it all. Getting Bucky back. And Tony has to admit Bucky has a certain charm to him that draws a room together and eases tension with hearty laughter.

Plus, Steve wants them to get to a place where they could coexist in the same space, and he needs to at least try. He _is trying_ damn it. Even after everything, Tony finds himself seeking Steve’s approval and he hates that insecure, broken part of him that’s still seeking it out.

Bile bubbles up from his stomach because for all Bucky’s charm in the world, Tony still can’t wrap his head around why it had to be _either_ not _both_ and everything fades back to feeling dull and hollow, underlined with thick lines of anger.

If he lingers on that train of thought too long, the anger will dissolve into loneliness and he’ll want a drink, so he shoves it away and thinks of literally anything else.

He doesn’t do a great job of it.

When Bucky suggests a late-night spar, Steve follows him out of the room and Tony finds himself alone again. As if by magic, Bucky appears more and more, verbally stepping between him and Steve whenever Steve engages Tony directly. When things heat up during meals, or in the middle of a drill, and even when they’re all piled around the conference room table, Bucky is a constant source of safety between them.

He doesn’t get Bucky. Not really. But he can begrudgingly admit that he likes him more and more as time goes by. It’s not so hard to see why Steve cares for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having a hard time focusing at work, so here, have a bonus chapter for today's update. 
> 
> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

Peter becomes a member of the team with seamless ease. After classes and on the weekends, the young spider participates in training exercises on a near daily basis, sparring just as well as the rest of them, and earning a hundred bucks off the allegedly-famed Hawkeye and Falcon. He takes them both down with an effortless grace, surprising them with a combination of his new web fluid and the drone that neither of them had been anticipating. 

“Not fair, I didn’t know we were using drones!” Sam laughs, laying flat on his back on the mats as Peter hangs suspended from the ceiling above him.

One eye of the mask dilates in a cheeky wink and Tony cheers him on from the sidelines.

Bucky wanders by, making to help Sam off the mat as Clint shoves his prize into his hand, but instead plucks the small wad of bills out of his hands as soon as it appears. For his own underage safety, Bucky claims, and they burst into hysterics.

It’s hard to know how to feel, his kid making friends with the Avenger’s own version of the Three Stooges. But for now, he allows it, enjoys it, even.

Whatever Peter has said to Steve has had a significant impact. Steve keeps his head down during drills, barking orders and relaying Bucky’s observations clearly and efficiently only as much as is needed to improve performance. Bucky still doesn’t fight with the team, but he’s agreed to give it a try when Tony’s done working on a new arm.

In a moment of weakness, he asks FRIDAY where Steve is two days later. He hasn’t physically seen Steve in forty-eight hours, and against his better judgement, he’s able to admit that he’s concerned.

“Is he in the Compound, FRI?” Tony’s crammed underneath a prototype of repulsor technology he’s trying to figure out how he can add to a Quinjet for better aerial attacks. The tech is on point, but the compatibility is proving trickier than anticipated.

“Who, Boss?” She chirps.

“Don’t play dumb, baby, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Captain Rogers,” FRIDAY says his name with a disdain Tony wasn’t sure AI’s were even capable of, “is currently on the B.A.R.F. floor. He is presently using the software to–”

“Nope. Absolutely not. Mute.”

That had been a massive mistake, because now he has to sit in the chilled knowledge that Steve is working through memories with someone. It would make sense, if that’s what’s been taking up so much of his time.

The jumble of thoughts that follow simultaneously gut him and rip him to shreds, because it’s blatantly obvious, isn’t it? Steve’s probably working through memories of their time together so it doesn’t hurt so much. So, he can move on from whatever this was. Not initially how he’d intended B.A.R.F. to be used, but if Steve wants to use it to erase him–them–so be it.

What else would it be?

The asshole had already admitted that he wasn’t sorry when he’d sent that half-cocked letter, all justification, denial and placation. So, it wouldn’t be anything to do with apologies, or closure, or learning how to be a decent human being. No, if anything, he was easing the way to move on and forget Tony altogether. To forget that their time together has ever mattered in the first place.

Tony throws the multitool across the room, relishing the way it shatters into a splay of attachments across the tile.

For the briefest of moments, he wishes the end of days could hurry along so he can move on to whatever comes next. Whatever that might be. Anything except this limbo where everything hurts and nothing makes sense.

***

Steve doesn’t approach Tony when Peter is there and thoughts of what Peter may have said is taking up too much mental energy. When he finally works up the nerve to ask Peter a few days later, they’re down in the workshop tinkering with an incredible mock-up for Bucky’s new arm. Peter has had some fantastic ideas, and it’s one of the better pieces of tech Tony’s developed in recent months.

“Hey Parker,” Tony’s plucking away at some wiring while Peter is watching sequencing FRIDAY has put together regarding limb attachment. “Have you noticed anything strange about Cap, recently?”

“Huh? Oh, no, not really. I mean I hardly know the guy.”

“Right,” Tony says, “he just seems… I don’t know, skittish almost. It’s super weird to see him that way.”

“Yeah, strange.” Peter picks at something on the counter absent, eyes trained between the bit of dried waste and the flurry of information flickering across the screens. He doesn’t look up to meet Tony’s eyes. 

Tony sighs heavy and dramatic. “And to think, things were just starting to get better between us.”

“What?” Peter demands, waving his hand across the holograms to pause them. The colour in his cheeks is dissolving quickly. “You never–I thought you said–oh my god, Mr. Stark, I–I didn’t realize. Oh man. I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark– oh no what did I–”

It’s just too easy.

“You’re not even going to pretend, Pete? How do you even manage to hide your secret identity? Or do you? Has the entire world figured out who Spider-Man is and I just missed that? Because you’re a shit liar. Absolute crap, kid,” Tony cocks a hip against one workbench as Peter gapes at him like a salmon.

“What is happening right now?” Peter breaths, dazed.

“I know you said something to him. I just didn’t think you’d cave so quick. Out with it, Parker. What’d you say that’s got Cap so on edge?”

“It was nothing, Mr. Stark, really. I hardly said anything.” The flush on his face and the way he ducks his head don’t corroborate his story.

“Peter,” Tony warns, with a pointed finger.

Peter sighs, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. “I told him if he did anything to hurt you again, I’d suffocate him with my new super soldier web fluid.”

“Oh, well that’s not so–wait, do you have a new super soldier web fluid you forgot to mention?” Peter rolls his eyes, like _obviously Mr. Stark_ , but sue him because that’d be worth looking into! “Sorry. Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad. That’s not all though, Cap’s taken worse–hell, I’ve said worse.”

Peter mumbled something under his breath.

“Speak up, kid.”

“I told him that I knew what he had done and that he should be ashamed of himself and that he’s lucky you’re even alive after Siberia, so he better stay away.”

That sounded more like it. The way that Steve had come back in, white as a sheet, paired with this revelation, suggested that Steve had had no idea how significant his injuries had been after Siberia. Click, click, click, all the little pieces started to fit into place.

It’s hard to feel bad for him though, Tony still sporting a glossy pink scar across the breadth of his chest.

“Peter,” He says gently, because all at once the kid has tears in his eyes and looks like he’s about to cry.

“I didn’t mean to make anything worse. I swear, Mr. Stark. I just wanted–you’re always looking out for everyone else and I just–I wanted to make sure you knew that I had your back. After King T’Challa brought you back…” Peter chokes off as the air sticks in his lungs. “I don’t ever want to see you like that again.”

Tony does what any mentor-slash-father-figure would do and yanks the boy into a hug, holding him tightly as he shudders and shakes through the memory. He shushes him gently, running a hand over his back. It’s fucked them both up more than he cares to admit, and he could kill Steve for that, really.

Peter wouldn’t be here if not for Steve.

No, Peter wouldn’t be here if Tony hadn’t pulled him in.

Guilt mixes with remorse and regret and grief and loss and Tony slams the door shut on all of it. Focus on Peter. Peter needs you right now.

“Were things really getting better?” Peter asks in a small voice. “Did I ruin it?”

“No, I was just being an ass. You should know that by now, kid. I say the stupidest shit sometimes. And Cap’s fine, I’m sure. A little absent, maybe a bit more barkish early in the morning. He’s a big boy. I’m sure he’s fine. And I’m fine. And you’re going to be just fine so everything’s alright. Right kid?”

 _Please just say you’re alright. My heart can’t take it if you aren’t_.

Peter sniffles. “Okay, Mr. Stark.”

“Why don’t you give Bucky a call and let him know the arm’s almost ready?” Tony nudges him back towards the holograms waiting for his attention.

Peter agrees, and Tony lets out a breath he’d been holding onto for the entire exchange. Whatever Peter is thinking, he carefully hides behind an animated conversation with Bucky, first on the phone, and then in person when the assassin joins them in the workshop and presents his mottled shoulder for review.

The arm is easy enough to install, Shuri having cleaned up the joint and taken care of the majority of the docking port work back in Wakanda. They work for almost two hours before the arm is attached and functional, running through a series of tests like a dream.

Bucky twitches his fingers menacingly at Peter and asks him if he wants to stay for dinner.

They wander back up to the communal space, leaving Tony to a project he absently had claimed to stay and focus on. The second they’re gone he drops into a nearby chair and gives DUM-E a helpless look. 

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

DUM-E whirrs at him unhelpfully, spinning his claw.

Tony glares at him. “No, I don’t want to talk to him.”

DUM-E whirrs again, insistent.

“I should just be grateful he’s finally leaving me alone.”

DUM-E doesn’t buy it, trundling over to him on his little wheels and trying to give him a sharp prod with his claw. Tony smacks him away with a hand, light, against his long strut where it meets the claw.

“You’re a meddling bucket of bolts. I am _not_ still in love with him.”

Except he is.

Despite his better judgement, and regardless of it all, that’s what it all comes back to. He can hate him and resent him and push him away all he likes, but Tony’s known the whole time. Steve Rogers isn’t the kind of man you just stop loving. Apparently, not even after a shield to the chest.

It’s shameful and he feels humiliated, as if he’s willing to just get down on his knees and beg Steve to take him back so he doesn’t have to be so alone anymore. Its reminiscent of a dog, begging at the corner of the table, happy for any scraps that might be tossed his way.

Too bad that Steve’s made even that impossible with his damned letter. If he had just left the door open for him, for _them_ , even a crack, Tony would have thrown it open wide. Probably wouldn’t have been able to help himself.

If Steve could just admit that maybe, for once in his life, this had been his error and not Tony’s. It couldn’t always be Tony. There was a hell of a lot of things in this world he wasn’t certain he deserved, but he definitely knew he deserved better than this.

Tony sighs heavily, nudging DUM-E away until he wheeled back over to his charging port. Another exhausting day in their march towards the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm out of town tomorrow, so please enjoy this early update!   
> A short chapter, but I promise the next few will make up for it.
> 
> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

Tony hadn’t even realized that Steve was back from his latest secret one-manned mission, when FRIDAY alerts him to an emergency the following night.

“There’s an issue with the B.A.R.F. sequencing, Boss,” FRIDAY chirps, interrupting Tony with a cup of coffee halfway to his mouth and a mostly-eaten container of Chinese takeout balanced on one knee. It was late into the evening, sometime after midnight, and Tony scarfed down the food in the cover of night. Not that he had anything to hide. It definitely wasn’t stolen from Clint.

“What kind of issue?”

“It appears that the sequencing is skipping too quickly and the program is getting stuck in a feedback loop.”

“So, tell whoever is running it to shut it down?” Tony suggests, because it’s that obvious and he can’t understand why FRIDAY hasn’t done that already. She remains eerily quiet and something strange turns over in the bottom of Tony’s stomach. “FRI? Patch me through to whoever is running the session.”

“I can’t, Boss.”

He sits up a little straighter. “What the hell do you mean you can’t?”

“Captain Rogers initiated the sequencing independently. He’s unable to alter the original programming and I’m having some trouble overriding the system. I’ve located the error in my network but B.A.R.F. will require a manual override until you have time to complete a coding update on my network connection.”

“What the hell? He’s not supposed to use it on his own!” Tony exclaims into the empty room. “Stupid, arrogant, son of a bitch.”

Heart pounding of his chest and into his throat, Tony darts into the elevator and mashes the button for the lower level, snapping at FRIDAY to override any other requests to avoid delays, not that he anticipates anyone else to be awake at this hour.

Rushing through the door to the B.A.R.F. programming room, he tries to mentally prepare himself for whatever it is he might see there. Damn Steve for putting them both through this. Selfish. Always so fucking selfish.

Tony takes a deep breath, shoving inside the little operating room, hand already reaching for the override button, except –

Nothing could have prepared himself for this.

Steve is immobilized in the automatic restraints keeping him secured to the armchair, the visor over his eyes hiding his face. There’s a distorted grimace smeared across his face, his jaw clenched tight, and his hands are shaking where they grip the arms of the chair. If Steve had truly wanted to, he could have been out of his seat in a flash. The restraints weren’t meant for anything more than a gentle reminder not to move and jostle the visor when the participant was immersed in the display.

But Steve was the only person Tony knew who was more stubborn than himself. He also knew first hand how hard it was to break free of the restraints when you desperately wanted to be able to overcome the memory.

The scene Steve is seeing in front of him is one that shocks Tony to his core, because at first it doesn’t look like anything traumatic or disturbing. It’s just their bed, Tony lying on his stomach with his bare back visible above the blanket where it’s settled across his waist. Steve is naked and propped against the headboard, an arm pillowed behind his head with his face turned up to the ceiling, eyes closed and thick lashes fanning across his cheeks.

Tony remembers that day.

He’d woken Steve slowly, hands roaming across miles of perfect skin, mouth tight around the head of Steve’s cock as he sucked him off with long, languid strokes. No need to rush.

Steve had always loved that; the feeling of waking to his prick already hard and leaking inside the heat of Tony’s mouth. And Tony had loved it too, sucking him down while he was still soft, feeling him fill out and harden under his tongue. The trust of it all made him soar.

It was in those simple moments that Tony had never had to question if he made Steve happy. If he was enough for Steve.

He loathes to think why Steve would want to alter that memory.

Tony shouldn’t be watching this. He knows better. Come down, shut off the sequencing. That’s all he needed to do. And standing here, watching this, well, that was a massive violation of HIPPA and he could hear Pepper in his head, reminding him that a multi-million-dollar lawsuit was not what he needed right now.

Steve shifts in the chair, drawing Tony’s attention back to the scene. Realization slams into him like a train.

Memory-Tony was sharing a story about his mother now, wiping spit and spunk from his chin as he recounted a recipe she used to make in the fall because it’s right before Thanksgiving. It’s a dessert he hasn’t had since the Thanksgiving before she died, and Steve had said he’d give it a try. He’d followed through on that promise a few weeks later and Tony had had to blink the stars from his eyes for a month afterwards

But Steve has clearly broken through this memory already, because what Memory-Steve actually says is different.

“ _Tony, I need to tell you something_.” Steve runs a soft hand through Tony’s hair, his expression morphing into something dark and melancholy. The regret is tangible in the way his lips curve down and he tips Tony’s face up with a finger under his chin.

“ _What is it, big guy?_ ”

_“It’s about your parents. It’s not going to be easy to hear, but you need to know, okay?”_

The Tony in front of him shifts into a seated position, taking Steve’s hand in both of his own and waits.

Tony never gets to hear what Steve might have said, because the memory switches on them, fading to black and offering up something new.

Nausea rises in the back of Tony’s throat.

FRIDAY had said he was going through a rapid fire of sequencing before getting stuck into a feedback loop. So, if all the memories were like this, somewhere, Steve was hitting a dead end. As long as the scenes keep switching, they were only repeating of memories that Steve had been successful in altering, be it enough to cope, or put it behind himself.

Why was he doing this? What kind of sick punishment was this supposed to be? If anything, maybe Tony should have known, that pushing Steve away wouldn’t actually stop him, just leave him stumbling into something more. This mockery of self-flagellation.

No, he thought fiercely, he wasn’t going to shoulder the blame for this.

God, he needed to shut it off. But –

In the next memory, Tony is angry. He doesn’t remember this one, or what he’s so angry about, but he’s got a hand wrapped around one of Steve’s thick wrists, fingers tight.

 _“You promised.”_ Tony says.

_“I know, sweetheart, and I wish I could stay, but–”_

_“Where are you going, anyway? You keep getting called away on these ‘secret missions.’ Should I be getting suspicious? Jealous maybe?”_ Tony’s teasing in the sequencing, but he remembers now.

Steve had promised to accompany him to another dull gala that Tony hadn’t been able to get out of. He also remembers how bad he’d felt at the time, asking if he should be suspicious but knowing that he could trust Steve to provide that honest reassurance without batting an eye. Pushing that feeling down, telling himself that there was nothing to be jealous over, or insecure about, because his foundation with Steve was solid, and he’d never known a depth of love like this before.

The betrayal reappears as a hot poker through his belly, as hot and sharp as the first. 

_“Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”_ Steve admits, drawing Tony in for a sweet, chaste kiss, before pulling him over to the sofa. He settles him down, one hand on his knee and meets his eye with an even gaze. _“Bucky’s alive. I’ve been trying to find him.”_

The memory shifts before Tony can see how he might’ve replied.

There’s no time to catch his breath before it starts again.

Tony sags forward over the console, landing heavily on the heels of his hands as he watches. Steve’s face is still contorted, but his hands have stopped shaking. Tony imagines that he’s preparing himself, reminding himself to take a deep breath, for whatever is going to come last. God, he doesn’t even want to know.

It’s going to be Siberia; it has to be.

Tony watches as a few more memories fly by Steve, quick snippets of their time together. They’re always the same, Steve finds a way to tell him the truth, whether the truth about his parents, about Bucky, about lying to him if enough time has passed to warrant it. All of it.

In one memory, Steve tells him that he’s scared of what Tony might say, and then powers through anyways.

Tony’s emotions are traveling along with Steve, on some horrific warp-speed rollercoaster, ebbing and flowing like the tide in a typhoon, as he’s hit with every time Steve’s lied, hidden the truth, chosen not to trust him all over again. Except he’s doing all the right things now, and the whiplash leaves him gasping and raw, shredded down to the very core of who he is. It’s too hard to process what this means, all without Steve having to say a word.

A tentative tendril of hope peeks out between the carefully constructed shards of Tony’s shattered heart, wondering if maybe Steve is starting to see. To understand.

He must, if he’s gone to this length to break these memories.

Tony wants to hold him, he realizes, and that shakes him more violently still.

His eyes flicker across the newest memory. Steve is in the yard outside of Clint’s farmhouse, dripping with sweat and glistening, all bronzed god in the sun.

_“Thor didn’t say where he was going for answers?”_

_“Sometimes my teammates don’t tell me things. I was kind of hoping Thor would be the exception.”_

_“Yeah, give him time. We don’t know what the Maximoff kid showed him.”_

_“‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.’ Pulled us apart like cotton candy.”_

_“Seems like you walked away alright.”_

_“Is that a problem?”_

_“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old fashioned.”_

“ _I have a dark side, Tony.”_ Steve abruptly changes the script before things heat up any further. Before he snaps the damned log in front of Tony’s face.

The abrupt change of pace startles him, and he can’t look away while Steve pauses and then eventually adds, “ _there’s… there’s something I haven’t been telling you.”_

 _“And you’re giving me a hard time about keeping secrets?”_ Tony exclaims, on the defensive in a flash.

 _“I know, I’m sorry. It’s not right of me. It’s been going on too long already.”_ Steve drops the block of wood in his hands and stares down at his feet. His shoulders arch into a pathetic hunch, and in that moment, he looks so small, so vulnerable. “ _I don’t want you to hate me.”_

“ _Do you hate me, right now?”_ Tony asks, stepping into Memory-Steve’s space and placing both hands on his shoulders, anger dissolving into concern.

Steve emphatically shakes his head.

_“We all fuck up, Steve. I fuck up all the time, and you still have my back. You see me when it matters. Tell me now, whatever it is. We’ll figure it out. Do the right thing now.”_

He watches as Steve stutters and stammers over the words, telling him everything even when his voice cracks and the tears start to fall. He admits that for over a year he’s been keeping these massive, back breaking secrets, and the implication for what they mean settle over Tony to weigh him down along with Steve. Tony watches dully as his own face transitions through devastation, anger, betrayal and ultimately falls into a despair so palpable he can feel it in his bones.

In the memory that Steve’s created, Tony wraps his arms around his shoulders and holds him. He doesn’t forgive him, doesn’t say anything at all. Just holds him through it until the scene dissolves into black.

Bile rises up and Tony swallows back the burn.

It’s hard to decide whether or not that’s Steve’s perfect fantasy ending, or something Tony might really do and at this point, Tony has no idea. Bitterness has coloured these memories too severely in his own mind and reality now seems to give way to a shield in his chest and his arms wrapped around the Winter Soldier’s throat.

He hopes that that’s what he might’ve said.

The program switches to Siberia next and Tony already knows what’s going to happen, and he knows why Steve won’t be able to break through. It’s so obvious; Steve has to know that by now, so why does he keep trying?

_“Did you know?”_

_“I didn’t know it was him.”_

_“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?!”_

Tony watches as Steve tries, desperately to explain. The memory shifts to Steve trying to tell him before the video plays, before they enter the bunker, in the middle of the video. He apologizes while Tony’s already attacking Bucky, holding his hands up in defense instead of trying to intervene.

Steve even lets Tony beat the shit out of him in one.

Steve tries so many times that Tony hears– _Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?!–_ at least six times more before he slams his hand down on the override button and the sequence disappears. The restraints holding Steve in place spring free and he slumps forward, gasping.

Tony stumbles into the room, tripping over his feet and the inconsistent rhythm pounding in his chest before he drops to his knees in front of Steve. Every part of Steve’s body is trembling, rattling around like shutters in a tornado and Tony can’t remember a time where he’s ever seen him like _this_.

There are tears streaked down his cheeks and when Tony pushes the visor off and throws it across the floor, Steve’s eyes aren’t even focusing on him, full of fresh tears ready to spill.

Steve looks so completely hollow, a shell of the man that Tony knew once.

“Cap? Steve! Look at me, damn it.” He clasps him on both sides of his face, thumbs under his jaw to tip his head down.

When Steve speaks, it’s far away and crackling. “T-Tony?”

“It’s me, sweetheart, it’s me.” The endearment slips out, unbidden. “I’ve got you, okay? It’s okay. What the fuck were you thinking, you gigantic idiot?”

“I’m sorry. God, I am so fucking sorry, Tony. Please believe me.” Big, heaving sobs take over and Tony tugs him forward into his arms, half collapsing under the massive weight of him. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, one of Tony’s legs is quickly falling asleep under him, but he holds him through it all. Just like in Steve’s memory from the farm.

“Shh, okay, you’re okay. Come on, now.” He strokes a hand up and down Steve’s spine, into the hair at the back of his neck.

“I can’t break it.”

“I know, it’s okay.”

“It’s not. I don’t know why I can’t do it. I’ve tried so many times.”

“You’re not supposed to do this by yourself.” Tony murmurs, pressing his forehead into Steve’s temple. It feels so good to hold him. To be held by him again, even as his body is screaming to be let go. _Too tight, too much, he’ll smother you this way_. Tony shoves it all aside. “You’re supposed to have someone else with you so this doesn’t happen.”

“Why can’t I break it?” Steve asks desperately, ignoring everything else.

Tony sighs, closing his eyes. “Because what you’re trying to do with these other memories… it’s, I guess it’s because you’re trying to prevent that last memory from happening, right? You’re trying to tell him – me – before everything goes to shit?”

Steve nods faintly against his shoulder.

“You own it and I respond or I don’t, whatever your mind decides is enough. So, all the other memories change because the rational side of you already know that if you had done all those things, there would have been different results.”

It’s just science. Tony can talk about science any day of the week.

“Right.” Steve’s voice is small and tight.

“But in that last one… what you’re looking for isn’t possible. There’s nothing you could say or do differently by then. The damage is already done. Even B.A.R.F. has its limitations, Cap.”

Tony swallows hard, biting hard on the inside of his cheek to hold back his own tears. If it’s possible, Steve seems to sag even further into his arms.

“You saw it all, then?” Steve’s voice is the smallest of whispers.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, I got that much,” Tony tries to tease, aiming for a levity that doesn’t shine through. “I didn’t, ahem, I didn’t realize that you felt that way. That you realized how I–why I –”

“You didn’t really give me much of a chance, Tony.”

And okay, maybe he deserves that, because he hadn’t really given Steve the time of day. Tony had written him off entirely after everything, his rage and bitterness too strong to reign in and so he’d let it loose and hurt them both even more in the process.

Tony clamps a firm seal over the part of him that wants to hop onto the defensive, to remind Steve that he’d had no reason to give him the time of day anyhow. He reminds himself of the closed door in his face and takes a breath, letting Steve’s actions speak for him.

The door opens a crack, a barely there movement in the back of his mind and Tony gathers the strength to peek through.

Squeezing him across the shoulders, Tony sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

Tony jostles him with a small nudge. “It’s not a competition.”

Finally, Steve’s tears seem to stop and he takes a few tempered breaths. When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far, easing back so that he’s sitting with his legs spread, Tony on his knees between them still, but back on his calves now. Steve looks open and raw and so, so painfully defenceless.

“Did you mean it?” Tony ventures, taking care to wrap the sliver of hope in a layer of armour as thick as the Iron Man suit, and Steve gives him a look as if to say, _seriously_. Tony powers past it anyways. “All those things you said. Did you…?”

“Every time, Tony. There’s not a moment that goes by where I don’t mean those things, over and over again. You have no idea how badly I wish I’d – how much I wish I had been able to tell you, before.”

Steve sighs, running his hand through his hair and leaving it sticking up at odd angles.

“Steve.” When Tony says his name, Steve’s eyes shoot to his face. They’re wide and open, so blue that Tony thinks he could easily drown in them. After all, he’s drowned in them before, so many times over. 

Just for a moment, he wants to let it all go. It’s okay, he can let himself have this. It doesn’t have to mean forgiveness; it doesn’t have to mean anything at all.

“Tony you–”

“Just, shut up for a second, okay?” Tony reaches for him, voice soft.

He lets his palm rest on Steve’s cheek, brushing his fingers across his cheekbone as his thumb catches on the corner of his mouth. There’s every opportunity for Steve to pull away, push him back, but his lips part anyway, drawing a harsh gasp as Tony gently tugs down on his bottom lip. 

When he leans forward, he thinks he’s going to kiss Steve gently, a soft press of the lips after so long apart.

How ridiculous.

The moment that his lips touch Steve’s, his whole body lights up like fireworks in the night sky. If anything, he deserves a medal for the whole five seconds he holds back before he’s crawling into Steve’s lap, thighs on either side of Steve’s hips. Tony gets his hands in his hair, stroking his face, cupping his chin. Any part of Steve that he can get his hands on, really.

And it’s so damn good. 

He kisses Steve with everything. Everything that he hasn’t said for months. All the love and heartache Tony’s been trying to live with; trying to drown in booze and projects that barely make a dent in easing the storm of emotion inside him. Compared to this, they seem like fruitless endeavours now because he’s only ever been able to quiet the storm with Steve’s hands on him, his mouth sealed to his own.

Finally, Steve is giving him back the pieces of himself he left behind in Siberia.

Steve makes a valiant attempt to keep up, sliding his tongue into Tony’s mouth but Tony forces him back. Tilting his head up with both hands in his hair, he yanks hard and the throaty moan that rips from Steve’s throat bolts straight to his cock.

He’d almost forgotten that sound. There’d been a time where he thought he might never hear that sound again.

Tony squirms closer, thrusting his hips down hard into Steve’s and rolling his throbbing erection against the echoing bulge in Steve’s jeans. The sounds pouring out of Steve now are music to his ears, a song that never gets old and unlocks a series of vivid memories from the shadowy crevices of his mind. 

Knowing that Steve regrets it all, that he would do it all differently, that he’s _sorry_ and that it’s real, not something he has to say or wants to say to make it all go away. That he understands that he fucked up and fucked Tony over and Tony is worth it, he’s been worth it this whole time. That’s the hottest part, somehow, because nothing has ever really made sense when it comes to Steve and Tony’s messed up brain.

Just a glimmer of that feeling of being _enough_ after all this time has his burrowing closer, desperate to climb inside Steve’s skin and stay there forever.

Tony bites Steve’s lower lip, forcing Steve to share air and saliva and their combined gasps of pleasure.

Whenever he opens his mouth to speak, Tony kisses his harder. Silencing him with deep sweeps of his tongue because he doesn’t want to hear it. Not yet.

Steve’s hands are all over him, slipping under his shirt to span wide across his hips. They trip over themselves, skating up his back until his shirt is under his arms and he has to strip it off. Whatever Tony needs to do to keep Steve’s hands on him.

Shirt tossed to the floor, Steve’s hands glide through his hair, tracing the lines of his jaw and pet down his chest in a sweeping arc that should warm him from the inside out. It shatters everything,

Before Tony can even think to stop him, Steve’s fingertips brush against the thick line of scar tissue and his fingers skitter away. Steve startles backward, breaking the kiss and holding Tony back with a hand on his shoulder.

There’s not a lot of light in the room, but there’s enough for Tony to take in the horrified look on Steve’s flushed face. He swallows hard, resisting the urge to cover himself and close his eyes. 

“Tony, oh my god.”

“Don’t, please don’t.” Tony begs, closing his eyes and resisting the urge to cover himself. “Steve, please. _Please_.”

“Later.” Steve’s voice is pinched as he forces the word out. He presses his forehead into Tony’s chest with a shuddering breath. “We have to talk about this. Promise me. I can’t, not if we won’t–”

“After.”

Steve all but growls, plastering his mouth to Tony’s again and drawing him more firmly into his lap. This time, when Tony rolls his hips, Steve thrusts up to meet him, his entire body trembling with something far more intense than lust.

Tony tugs his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side with his own before he’s reaching down and working on the clasp of Steve’s belt and the button on his jeans. It’s like no time at all has passed, and Steve is exactly the same as he remembers. He’s all subtle, musky male, firm with thick muscles that Tony wants to bite and scratch. Just leave a few marks as a reminder that Steve is still Tony’s.

They still belong to each other, even after everything.

When he drags his nails down Steve’s chest, it’s obvious that he feels the same because his mouth falls away from Tony’s to suck brutal hickeys into the curve of his throat. Teeth rasp against the muscle there, and Tony bites out a moan, shoving his hand into Steve’s boxers at the same time Steve reaches to paw at Tony’s sweats.

In seconds they’re both bare, fumbling clothing aside haphazardly and just enough to feel flesh against flesh, rolling together as Tony struggles to get a hand around them both. It’s only fair that Steve take over – his hands are bigger – so he threads his fingers through Steve’s on the back of his head and tugs it down between them.

And oh, Steve’s always been so good at taking directions.

The circle of Steve’s fist is tight and warm. Tony drops his head to Steve’s shoulder, gasping and desperate to watch. It’s been so long since he’s seen Steve fall apart.

“Oh, fuck that’s good.” Tony groans, pressing erratic kisses into Steve’s collarbone.

“Tony, Tony,” Steve pants into his hair, his ear, capturing the lobe between his teeth as he strokes them off in a hard, unsteady rhythm that makes Tony squirm. “Thought about this, you, every day. Every damn day. Christ, look at you.”

Tony whines Steve’s name, long and high, thrusting counter to his rhythm for a little extra friction that makes his eyes roll back. Steve grips them tighter and all at once he’s right there on the edge.

“Oh sweetheart, damn it, don’t stop. Please, Steve. Come on.”

“I’ve got you.”

“I know, fuck, _fuck_ , I know you do. Christ, Steve, I’m going to–god, I’m going to come, Steve. _Please_.” Tony blinks back the tears biting behind his eyes because this is supposed to be good. It’s not sad, it’s good and he’s okay and this is so, so right. This is everything, damn it.

Steve’s grip on his jaw tightens almost painfully as he jerks Tony’s face up.

“Kiss me.” It’s another one of those damned demands but he’d be a fool to ignore it.

Tony’s eyes flick frantically between Steve’s. His pupils are blown black and wide, and oh. Tony’s drowning in them after all.

“Kiss me, I want to taste you when you–”

Tony seals their mouths together, sucking Steve’s tongue into his mouth right before he flies apart, the orgasm ripping through him and stealing all the air from the room, let along his lungs. For a moment, he swears that he’s reached some higher plane of existence, that Steve has fucked him right into the fourth dimension.

There’s only pleasure, rippling along his every nerve ending, curling his toes and pulsing thick from his cock. He barely registers Steve groaning into his mouth, breaking the kiss to press their foreheads together as he spills over them both, streaking over Tony’s design on their stomachs, and Steve’s huge hand.

Tony pants heavily against him, trying to regain some semblance of reality.

“That was–”

“Yeah.”

Steve tries again. “You were–”

“Yeah.”

They trade more kisses, the heat between them sated for now, and settle back into a warm afterglow that wraps thickly around Tony. He feels grounded and peaceful, content in a way that he hasn’t felt since the day Ross came striding into the Compound over a year ago.

“You are so beautiful.” Steve murmurs, running his hand through Tony’s sweaty hair. “So impossibly beautiful.”

Tony shoots him a lazy, almost giddy smile because he’s drunk on Steve now. Of course, he is. He’s an addict who's just had his first fix in forever.

God, he wants to take him upstairs and spend the rest of the night taking him apart. It would be all too easy to strip them both down to their frames and start again.

The desire to see if it’s possible to work this through, to rebuild, surprises him.

“Steve I–” Steve covers his mouth lightly with his palm to still him and then replaces it with a short, chaste kiss.

“Just, hang on, okay?” He pulls away quickly, and passes Tony his shirt, encouraging him to follow suit as he rights his own clothes.

When they’re both fully dressed, the cooling come on their stomachs swept away with a conveniently placed box of Kleenex Steve discovered, he leads Tony into the room next door.

FRIDAY turns the lights on soft, and low, and Steve sinks down onto one of the couches, letting Tony settle himself in whatever way is easiest. Everything is screaming at him to curl up in Steve’s lap, drape himself across him and never let him go, but it’s not quite right. Not yet.

He perches nearby, hands nervous where they shake, just so, in his lap.

“Okay.” Steve says after a minute, and it takes Tony’s blissed-out brain a second to realize that he had been starting to say something. Right.

“I don’t know what just happened.”

“Neither do I.” Steve admits, nose wrinkling slightly. “It doesn’t, uh, really change anything, does it?”

The question is vague and Tony thinks that must be intentional, as if Steve’s trying not to give too much away, waiting to see how much Tony will actually offer.

Be brave, Stark, but not desperate. “Maybe… maybe it could, though. I mean, if we wanted it to.”

“Tony, if you don’t know–if you’re not sure, then maybe we should wait and you can–”

“I heard you.” Tony cuts him off, not prepared to hear Steve try and talk him out of this, if that’s what he’s trying to do. “I don’t know if you know that I did, but I heard you back before, when you–”

Steve’s eyes flicker with recognition, and he’s very gentle when a few moments pass and he finally says, “I knew.”

Tony frowns, slightly. “You… you did?”

“Yeah, Tony, I knew you heard me. I wanted you to hear me. I didn’t think you were ready to hear it but I wanted to tell you anyway, and if you didn’t want to know, you didn’t have to.” Steve’s eyes search his face.

And Tony. Well, Tony doesn’t really know what to make of that dirty trick.

“I did, too. I mean, I felt the same way–back then, when you said, uh, what you said.” Swallowing hard, Tony ducked his head, avoiding Steve’s eyes.

To no one’s surprise, Steve is quicker than that ducking his head in time with Tony’s movements. He forces Tony to meet his eye. “When I said that I loved you.”

The words are like velvet, stroking along Tony’s skin and making him want to melt. All those carefully constructed walls, just shattered pieces around his feet now.

“Yeah,” He whispers. “When you said that you loved me.”

“And now? Because if there’s something there, Tony, even a part of something, I’m willing to do what it takes. There’s a lot in the way and God knows it’s going to be awful. But if there’s something, I want to try. I want you and I’ll work to deserve you, to earn back your trust and your respect. Whatever you need.”

Tony starts to shake his head slowly, not in disagreement, but in disbelief.

Steve misinterprets him, pulling away physically as his eyes cloud over and Tony has to reach out to stop him, settling him with a hand on his chest.

“Of course, there’s something.” This is Steve Rogers, for Christ’s sake. There will _always_ be something there. “It’s been you since New York, you have to know that.”

Hope and a deep, unwavering love blooms across Steve’s features, his cheeks flushing with delight and a metric ton worth of relief. Reaching out to him, Steve pulls Tony into his arms and holds him on the right side of too tight.

“Can I kiss you again?” But his lips already pecking across his forehead, his temple, his cheek.

Tony turns in his arms and captures his mouth. It should be sweet and soft, all the gentle things that they’d ignored when they’d been desperate and clawing at each other. Except it’s just as heated as before and Tony can feel the arousal pool in his stomach all over again, his cock twitching valiantly in his pants.

“Come upstairs with me.” Tony mumbles against his lips.

Steve groans. “I want to, god Tony, I want to.” More kisses, then, “but we should talk. We should wait. Talk first, then go upstairs. This is part of the problem isn’t it–we don’t talk, we do this, we, oh God–” He’s losing the battle; Tony can already feel his resolve slipping away in the little gasps escaping his mouth between kisses. “God, I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“Tomorrow?” Tony’s willing to bargain. “Talk tomorrow, I promise. Promise, Steve, I swear. Come on, sweetheart, please. I just want to feel good, with you. I haven’t felt good in so long. After we can talk until, you’re sick of hearing my voice again. I promise.”

In the back of his mind Tony knows that he’s fooling himself as much as Steve. This is _exactly_ what they do, what they’ve always done, but he doesn’t want to fight anymore. He’s so tired, and they can fight tomorrow if they have to. He just wants to feel Steve all around him and maybe pretend that things really can go back to normal this easily.

They won’t, he knows that. Maybe tomorrow Steve will shatter everything and these moments will become memories steeped in regret and bitterness, too. But he’ll allow himself a moment to be weak; to take the risk again.

Tony licks a stripe behind his ear and Steve noses at his jaw when he laughs. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Don’t you want to fuck me, sweetheart?”

“You’re a menace.” Steve whines, already rubbing up against his thigh again, hard and thick. That glorious super soldier perk. “Tomorrow. You promise? No running away.”

“No more running away.”

That’s all Steve needs to hear, apparently, because he’s got Tony in his arms, bridal style in a way that Tony should probably hate but he desperately loves anyway. Steve plows his way towards the elevator, setting Tony on his feet just briefly so he can grab him across the back of his thighs and pull him back into his arms, clinging to his waist and his neck.

Between fevered kisses, Steve gasps out an order to FRIDAY to take them directly to the penthouse. Layers of clothing fall like breadcrumbs on their way to Tony’s bedroom and land somewhere beside Tony’s carefully erected defenses.

When Steve finally has him naked, he pulls Tony down on top of him in the ridiculous, massive bed.

Their bed.

“I want to ruin you,” he groans into the hollow of Steve’s throat.

“Yeah, Tony, please.”

Tony, gracious as always, would have been a fool to ignore such a perfect request. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	9. Chapter 9

When Tony opens his eyes in the morning, he relishes the delicious body high that comes along with feeling fucked out, instead of fucked up. When he stretches, every muscle aches and screams for relief, reminiscent of the ways Steve has touched him. How he’s held him, cherished him, and pushed him to limits he hasn’t experienced or yearned for in months. 

Tony’s a mess really, or at least the parts of himself that he can see. Thick fingerprints litter his torso, darkest at the hips but spreading onto his belly and chest from when Steve had held him down and pounded into him from behind.

There’s a particularly impressive bite mark over one of his nipples, and hickeys sucked into the top of his chest, no doubt scaling higher up his throat. He’d forgotten what a force of nature Steve could be in bed and Christ, how he had missed that.

Tony curls onto his side, taking in Steve’s sleeping form beside him where he’s flat on his back. The gentle rise and fall of his chest are soothing where he’s flat on his back. Steve looks lighter than he has in weeks, the bags under his eyes already fading and the crease between his brows smoothed out. Tony reaches over and runs his finger across his forehead but Steve doesn’t stir, still dead to the world.

It was something, seeing the way the tension could just slip from the lines of his skin.

And there wasn’t a single mark on him, the prick. Not that Tony hadn’t given it the old college try, biting down hard enough to make Steve grunt and squirm.

He sighed, they never lasted.

A few minutes slipped past before Steve shifts and comes awake with a start, blue eyes flicking up to meet Tony’s before he settles and relaxes back into the pillows. It seems they shared the same fear then, that it had all been a dream, and the other might disappear in the light of day.

Tony strokes a hand through Steve’s hair and is rewarded with a soft smile. “Hey.”

“Hi, sweetheart. How do you feel?”

“I –”

It hits Tony abruptly that he’s not really sure. He’s happy, yes, blissed out and this is the best he’s slept in months. But there’s a lot that’s lying in wait, just below the surface, and Tony’d be a liar if he said there wasn’t still complicated layers of hurt, underlined with rejection and anger waiting to overflow. Some of it probably didn’t even belong to Steve, but it’s all there, swirling in the same gnawing pot of confusion.

He gives Steve a helpless shake of his head. It’s the best he can do.

“Me too.” Steve admits. “But you still want to? Talk, I mean, see if we can start to figure some of this out?”

“Yes. I still want that.”

Rough fingers slide back along his jaw, spilling down along the curve of his neck and onto his chest. The night before, Steve had been so careful to avoid his scars, fingers purposefully skittering away, only skimming the edges of the long, horizontal mess that crosses over his breastbone. It slices straight through the circle of scar tissue that used to house the arc reactor.

Now, Steve traces a finger across the entire thing from edge to edge, face tight and set in a firm line and Tony feels raw. “Can we start with this, please?”

He lets out a shaky breath and stills Steve’s wandering hand, pressing it firmly to the centre of his chest.

“I thought Rhodey would have told you.” Tony starts, “but I can also understand why he didn’t. After the fight – after the shield – the suit was destroyed. There wasn’t enough power to pilot it, and it had been bent in. I would have died, Helen said, if T’Challa hadn’t been there.”

Steve chokes on a breath, the colour fading from his cheeks. For a minute, Tony wonders if he’s going to be sick.

“I didn’t want–god, I am so sorry. I never meant for that. I only wanted to stop you; Tony I swear. And I almost – I can’t believe I – Tony, I’m sorry. I should have known better. Hell, I did know better. I remember thinking ‘it’s the suit, just power down the suit and it’ll all stop’. But I know you’re not invincible, and I did it anyway. I’m–I am so sorry.”

And Tony believes him. Just like that.

He can see it in his face, feel it in his words. It doesn’t feel good, far from it, because he’s spent months expecting to hear Steve justify and excuse, find ways to blame Tony instead. But it’s better this way in the end, even if the truth isn’t as satisfying as the fight. Even if he wants to See Steve hurt the way he’s hurt, just to feel some sense of justice.

“I know that. Honestly, I do.”

“What happened, after? How badly were you…?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Steve nods sharply and because he would want to know, too, if it had been Steve, he’ll tell him.

Except it wouldn’t have been Steve because he would never–

Not helpful.

Flat and detached, as if he’s talking about someone else’s broken body, he explains, “I had a few broken ribs. One of them had dislodged some bone shards in a few places and collapsed one of my lungs. With the pre-existing heart issues, it was touch and go for a while there.”

Every word seems to slice through Steve like a knife.

“I’m okay now, Steve.” Tony says, voice soft.

Steve slowly pulls his hand back, looking at it like something ugly and foul. “How can you even stand me touching you right now?”

“Ehh, I’ve always been a glutton for punishment.”

When Steve’s entire body recoils from the joke he flinches, Steve shaking his head and offering a watery half-smile. “That’s not funny, Tony.”

“I know.” He wipes at the corner of Steve’s eyes with his thumbs, dropping them down to trace across his beautiful, trembling mouth.

“I hope you know that this is only the beginning.” Steve sniffles. “There will be a lot of manly tears if we’re going to sort this out. No more avoiding.”

“You can cry, Steve, it’s fine. There might be some yelling too.” Tony gives him a lopsided smile. “I’ve never been so great at all this. My therapist tells me that anger _isn’t_ actually a primary emotion.”

That seems to surprise Steve. “You’re been seeing a therapist?”

“Not recently, but I gave it a try for a bit. I thought it was time I try and sort some stuff out.” When Steve opens his mouth and abruptly snaps it shut, Tony rolls his eyes. “I was trying to grow, Steve, don’t make a big deal of it.”

“It’s something to be proud of.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re not very good at this, are we?”

“We’ve never had to be, before.”

Tony frowns because it sounded right in his head, but his stomach is screaming that it’s a lie. They could have done this before, at any point. Hell, he had tried to talk to Steve, more than once, before everything fell to pieces.

It would have saved them so much pain and suffering if they had. If Steve had listened, then.

“My turn now?” Tony takes a deep breath and looks down at his hands. They’re loosely clasped in Steve’s and though he’s nodding, there’s caution swirling in Steve’s eyes and Tony imagines that it must be the mirror image of his own. “The letter you sent me–”

“It was bullshit.” Steve interrupts, following it up with a softer, “ _sorry,”_ before tipping his head for Tony to continue.

“I just… I don’t understand why you even thought you should send it in the first place. I think I deserved better than that.”

“You did.”

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him and listens to his soft, even breaths. Steve is probably going to defend himself and tell Tony every reason that letter was necessary. That maybe he still feels the same way, but he can understand why Tony _feels_ like he deserves better. It’s an axe hanging between the, waiting to sever the delicate threads of whatever this is and might become.

“I’d like to try and explain, but it took me a while to figure it out. The first part isn’t so nice.”

Tony draws a breath. “Okay.”

“When we were first in Wakanda, I blamed you for all of it. Everything. I was so incredibly angry and I didn’t know how you could do that to me. To us.” A feeling Tony knew all too well. “I spent a lot of time telling myself if you hadn’t been so stubborn all the damn time, if you hadn’t always expected so much of me, maybe I would have said something sooner. I spent a lot of time telling myself I couldn’t trust you because you hadn’t trusted me with Ultron, right?”

When Tony’s hands twitch on the bed between them, Steve pauses, eyes pleading.

“I had been keeping secrets a long time before Ultron, Tony.”

The admission is a vindication, blossoming in his chest and relieving some of the heavy pressure on his lungs. “Thank you.”

“The letter was selfish. I see that now. I thought that if I could just… I don’t know, appease you, or something. Humour you, tell you I at least understood your perspective and why you were holding onto it so tightly, that maybe that would be enough. It was the easiest way I could get what I wanted.”

“And what was that?” Tony asks, dully.

“Us. I thought that that would be enough to at least get us talking again.” Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair, tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling before his eyes slowly skate back down to Tony’s. “I didn’t figure it out for a long time after. The longer I didn’t hear from you, the angrier I got. The more resentment built up.”

“I know the feeling.” Tony shifts uncomfortably on the bed, nervousness dampening the back of his neck with a line of sweat.

“I didn’t even figure it out on my own, not really. It wasn’t long before you called that I actually started to see things differently. I watched how close Bucky and T’Challa got, after he came out of cryo and I was so bitter. How could two people with so much hurt and anger between them manage to set things aside, and my own–my…”

“Partner,” Tony supplies gently.

“My partner. How could my own partner not give me the same time of day.”

“It’s not like you gave me any reason to!”

The frustration breaks through his shaky, vulnerable composure. It’s not fair, he hasn’t done anything wrong because Steve is the one who lied and destroyed everything. Tension crackles in the air when Steve doesn’t bite back, Tony clenching down on his teeth and letting them grind together until it hurts.

“So, I blamed you even more.” Steve continues. He doesn’t flinch back, or even move at all. He sits there, back straight as he soldiers on, a statue in the centre of their bed. “Bucky started apologizing at some point and it was too much. Constant, really, and I hated it. What did he have to apologize for, you know? And yet he just kept at it, over and over.”

Steve pauses, smile wistful and far away.

“He’d get angry when I’d tell him to stop. I kept trying to convince him that there wasn’t anything to forgive and we didn’t need to talk about it. Through all of that he’d listen to me talk about you and what we’d had. I always came back to ‘how can he be so heartless,’ after everything.”

Steve grimaces, clocking how Tony takes intention breaths, deep and slow. Everything in him wants to scream why Steve is wrong, and that’s not true. Tony has always, _always_ tried to give him exactly what he wants. How can he not see that? 

“I talked a lot about your big ego getting in the way of everything. Then Bucky snapped and said ‘have you ever tried to apologize half as hard to Stark? Damn it, Stevie, get your head outta your own ass. This is on you.’”

Tony smirks, a stiff mockery he forces forward. “Have I ever told you how much I like that guy? He’s growing on me.”

Steve glances up to meet his eye and there’s a shimmer of tears there. The uglier emotions roiling in his stomach stops Tony from reaching out and holding that beautiful, desperate face. He wants to kiss the tears from his cheeks and assure him it’ll be fine, but he can’t yet.

He’ll hear Steve out fully first.

“That’s pretty much the gist of it all. Buck’s never been shy about telling me what he really feels. He said I’d never been selfish, back before everything and that’s what did it. I thought you were the selfish one. You never listened and you expected a lot from me–”

“You expected a lot from me too, Steve.”

“I didn’t see it that way.”

Steve has never minced words to save his feelings, and he doesn’t do that now.

As if Tony doesn’t already know that. Isn’t that what so much of this has been about? Living underneath the weight of Steve Roger’s expectations has always been more than even the Iron Man armour could bear. Sometimes, those expectations don’t feel like they’re even about Tony at all. 

Tony gestures for Steve to continue, and he does.

“I was trying to figure out a way to have it all because I didn’t want to lose everything again. I didn’t want to lose you over Bucky, and I didn’t want to lose him over us. So, I told myself a couple of small lies that snowballed into bigger ones and the deeper I got the harder it was going to be to come out.” Steve’s voice cracks and he clears his throat. “I don’t know when but at some point, I realized that I was going to lose you if I said anything so I just… never did.”

That feels so unfair. “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly have known that. You never even gave me a chance, Steve!”

The ache in his chest is back, radiating low and constant until it spread down his arm and into his wrist. The last thing that he wants to do is yell, so he absently rubs at the scar on his chest, clenching and unclenching his fingers. Trying to ignore how Steve’s eyes clock the movement, he gives a sharp shake of his head when Steve leans into him, reaching out as if he’s going to try and wrap him in his arms.

The last thing Tony wants right now is to be held. He swallows a few times around the lump in his throat and watches hurt blossom over Steve’s features.

“You’re right,” Steve says after a quite moment. “So now you know. Captain America’s a coward.”

Tony shakes his head, incredulous. “What does that even mean? Honestly, Steve! I was never in a relationship with Captain America! It’s always been about you. Steve Rogers doesn’t have to be a coward. That was a choice _you_ made.” Tony bites back a scoff. “It was choices you kept making over and over again.”

Steve just looks at him, blue eyes hooded. “What if they’re the same person?”

“They’re not.”

Everything in Steve’s posture rejects that sentiment and Tony thinks that’s what destroyed them once. It’ll destroy them all over again if Steve lets it. Heaven forbid the man allow himself to have flaws, and give Tony the opportunity to love him – and them – anyways.

If Steve would just hand them over, Tony would cherish them as all the slivers of Steve he’s never seen before. Without a doubt, Tony knows those slivers will fit directly into the cracks in their foundation. The cracks that have been there from the beginning. Resentment ebbs and flows beneath the surface because he gave Steve his own flaws willing, every imperfection, and in many ways, Steve has abused that privilege. 

“How can you be so sure?”

Tony offers Steve a sad smile and spreads his hands out in front of him, “because you’re here now.”

Steve shakes his head and leans back on his hands, glancing up at the ceiling. “You have too much faith in me, Tony. Everyone does. I don’t deserve it.”

“No, you don’t. But you have it, so you decide what you do with it.”

Steve doesn’t seem to have an answer to that, and for a long moment he’s lost in his own thoughts. Tony watches him mull everything over, swimming through a sea of inner conflict Tony doesn’t, can’t, understand.

Doubt surfaces, without warning.

“What did I do?” Tony asks despite himself, voice cracking as shame rises up to stoke the ache in his chest into a sharp, piercing pressure. “What did I do that made you stop trusting me in the first place.”

“Nothing.” Steve reaches out a hand towards Tony but stops, hand suspended above his on the bed. “Can I…?” Tony gives him the permission this time, and Steve takes one hand into both of his. His fingers are so laughably small in Steve’s massive palms. “You didn’t. In my mind, you did. I told myself it was fair game, because you hadn’t trusted me with Ultron, but that came after, remember. It was nothing you did. And I am so, so sorry Tony because you deserved more than all those lies. It was never about not trusting you. I didn’t trust myself, and us–you–were the collateral damage.”

Collateral damage.

It was the perfect descriptor really, capturing the mixture of devastation and loss, rage and heartbreak that had lived inside him and spread like shrapnel for almost a year. There had been a time once, when he’d thought he was done with shrapnel.

When he takes a breath and exhales, the pain subsides. Not entirely, not quite yet, but it eases.

“I guess I already know what you would have done differently.” Tony aims for a joke and Steve offers him an indulgent little half-smile.

“So much, Tony.”

He sighs. “Can we–would it be okay if we…?” That feels like enough for today and there’s too much to consider for him to listen to anymore. There’s nothing else he wants to say.

“Whenever you want.” Steve promises gently, tugging on Tony’s hands to draw him in closer. He runs a linger hand down to stroke across Tony’s chest, resting it flat on the soft curve of his belly. Glancing at his mouth, Steve leans in but hesitates before he kisses him this time.

It makes sense, because it feels new to Tony too and once Steve finds his footing again and tips his chin up with a brush of his fingertips, it gets even better. Like putting on a new mark of one of his suits, always new and exciting, better than the last, and yet sweetened with the sameness of what came before.

It’s so easy to set all the bad aside and lose himself in everything else.

They’ve only just scratched the surface, and somewhere below where the light can reach there’s an ocean’s depth of darkness to wade through. It’s been there all along, and at least now he’s not trapped there alone. Steve has said he’ll try, that he’ll do what it takes, and Tony wants to believe him.

There’s hope that maybe, if they try, they’ll get there. God, he wants to get there.

This time, it’s not Tony who turns the kiss filthy. Steve kisses him like he’s the lifeline securing him to the present, all desperate tongue and teeth and the eventual press of a half-hard erection into his hip when he scoots closer.

“You’re insatiable.” Tony breaths, clinging to him.

“Have you met yourself?” Steve slides a hand below the sheet where it’s pulled taut across Tony’s hip. The scrap of fabric does nothing to hide his own hard-on, and Steve’s thumb traces idly in the crease of hip and thigh. “We don’t have to. That was a lot.”

Tony sigh with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Fine. But just _one_ more time. You don’t get a lot of chances at make up sex like this, Steve, we’ve got to take it when we can get it.” Steve chuckles a little laugh into his mouth. “And for the love of Thor, don’t leave any more marks on me. I’m not going to be able to hide any of this.”

Secretly he loves it because then he won’t even have to say anything. The team will tease them, and Tony will laugh and make some sort of off-kilter joke to colour the tips of Cap’s ears, and they can all move on.

“You’re not too sore?” When Tony rolls his eyes, Steve gives him a playful smack on the hip, and starts to readjust him until Tony’s pressed up against his chest, facing away. “Like this,” Steve breaths into his ear, “I want to hold you just like this.”

Tony is still slick and mostly open from the night before, and with the stretch of tender fingers, and a little extra lube, Steve is sliding home into his body again. Both of Steve’s arms wrap around his chest, pillowing under his head.

Home. The word shoots through him, setting off pleasant little alarms in his brain.

He has to tell him.

“Welcome home.”

“Tony,” Steve breathes, mouth soft on his shoulder, pressing his name like a prayer into his skin.

Steve grips him tight, keeping Tony close and near immobilized as if he’s just along for the red. He feels safe and secure, as if he’s flying even, kept afloat by the gasps that breeze alongside his shoulders and tickle the back of his neck.

It’s not until they’re both panting and Tony’s barreling towards the edge that Steve speaks again.

“Thank you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky and Nat are in the kitchen later that morning when Tony skulks out of bed, thinking it’s late enough in the day that everyone will already be up and gone. It’s a rare morning off. Steve had cancelled their morning circuits the night before after Tony had drifted off in the warm circle of his arms.

When they see him, he grits his teeth and tries not to duck his head. Or limp.

Somehow, two of the deadliest assassins he knows, both well equipped with excellent poker faces, can’t even fake it for two minutes to cut him some slack.

“An apology must go a long way with you, huh Stark?” Bucky drawls with a put-upon leer as Tony shuffles closer to the coffee machine and wills himself not to flush.

“Bite me.”

Tony guzzles his way through a piping hot cup of coffee and promptly refills the cup. He plucks a second mug out of the cupboard and fills it too, adding sugar, before turning tail and running back into the soft, safe refuge of his bedroom.

Natasha snorted. “Looks like someone already has.” 

“Let it be stated, for the record, that I can be a very forgiving man.” Tony flicks them a charming smile. “Given the right incentive, of course.”

“Anything that gets Stevie to cancel morning drills.” Bucky stretches widely, back arching and popping, earning him a sideways glance of disgust from Natasha.

They look so pleasantly domestic like this, both still in sleepwear, relaxed and content. For a moment he wonders if maybe… but no, he’ll ask later when Steve is there for safety purposes. He’s got some self-preservation left in him.

“I’m happy for you,” Natasha offers in earnest. “Whatever’s changed. I’m glad. You deserve this.”

Bucky hums in agreement.

The realization that Tony could have just as easily sat down and joined them, feeling more at ease than he has in months, is jarring. But maybe that’s how these things happen. One morning, you wake up and the puzzle pieces are slotting back together, picking up speed as the image becomes clear.

It’s a nice feeling after his tired eyes have spent so long squinting, trying to fit and force pieces into place. The picture he’s looking at now isn’t even the one he started with, but somehow that feels right.

Tony pauses by the table and Bucky looks at him, dark eyebrows lifting.

“Thank you. Steve told me what you said and–”

“Gross, don’t do that.” Bucky waves a hand between them as if to both accept and bat away his thank-you. He’s smiling all the same.

Natasha snorts into her coffee cup. “Men.”

It appears there’s nothing more to be said, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Bucky already knows it anyway. As he’s stepping over the threshold back into the hallway, Bucky’s voice trails after him.

“Hey Tony?”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“Can you tell Stevie that he owes me fifty bucks?”

“I don’t appreciate you betting on my love life, Barnes.” Tony tosses him a fond smile over his shoulder anyway.

“Not your love life–I bet him that I knew you better than he did. Looks like I was right.” Bucky’s warm laughter, and the shit-eating grin on his face follows Tony back to his bedroom.

Steve is awake and dressed, looking every inch of handsome perfection. He’s tucking the sheets back into place on the bed, as if he’s forgotten that Tony has robots for that sort of thing. Steve never actually forgets; he just prefers it. These little routines that Tony has categorized under Things that Keeps Steve Rogers Sane. It wouldn’t surprise him if before the end of the world comes, Steve still manages to find time to bounce a quarter off the corners.

Tony sets the coffees down on the side table and leans back against the wall.

“Somewhere to be, Cap?”

Steve glances up as he finishes and settles his hands on his hips. “I have a meeting with Rhodes. I cancelled the training, but forgot about him.”

“Not like you to forget.” Tony smirks and Steve shoots him an exasperated look. “Don’t worry, I’ve been told that I can be very distracting.”

“It shouldn’t be long.”

“Barnes says you owe him fifty bucks.”

Steve groans. “He doesn’t really know you better than I do.”

“I know sweetheart, but he has saved me from kicking your ass a few times since you got back so maybe you owe him either way.”

“Yeah. I guess I do.”

***

Tony solders while Steve is gone, savouring the way that metal, when heated, effortlessly binds together and cools into something new.

The metaphor isn’t lost on him, as he rides the high of adrenaline of reconciliation all the way into a new Mark of the Iron Man boots. If only he could survive on this feeling alone, he’d never crave for another drop of booze again in his life.

It’s vindicating, to know that Steve finally understands. It must’ve been difficult, Tony imagines, to set so much aside and be willing to try again. The B.A.R.F. sessions can’t have been easy on him, but he did it anyways, to make things right even if only for himself. That counts for something, doesn’t it?

Steve’s apologized, more than once, and for more than just not telling Tony about his parents. No, he’s sorry for lying, hiding the truth for so long, not letting Tony in, blaming Tony when he shouldn’t have. Those are the things he said, which means he gets it. Genuinely, truly get it, and sees Tony for exactly as he is. Most of all, he listened, even when he might not have wanted to or liked what Tony was going to say.

Respect makes him feel light and airy, and he doesn’t even mind if Steve is still going to give him orders, especially if they continue to happen behind closed doors while Steve is peeling off his clothes. Tony will take _those_ orders and run with them. Knowing now that Steve will listen when he speaks, respects limits when he sets them, it’s… well, it’s everything.

Because he has listened, hasn’t he?

Something pulls and tugs at the back of Tony’s mind, waiting to be set free. It belongs to Bucky, the little words he offered him earlier that morning that had made them all chuckle, except now they’re twisting with doubt and dousing him in ice cold water.

 _I knew you better than he did_.

After that, it’s Bucky telling Steve to pull his head out of his ass, to apologize to Tony, to take ownership and accept that this, most of it, was on Steve. Which Steve had told him willingly, because it was important that Tony know that to fully understand him? It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.

But it’s also Bucky holding Steve back, physically, when he gets in his face and telling him to knock it off when he pushes too hard. It’s the hard line of Bucky’s body separating them when Steve crosses the line again and again.

The air in Tony’s chest feels marginally tighter.

DUM-E gives him a questioning whirr from the corner, and holds up the fire extinguisher which does neither of them any good. Tony brushes him off and the bot rattles off to the corner to lay in wait for an inevitable fire.

Tony shakes out his shoulders and wills himself to remember that it doesn’t really matter because Steve has apologized and they’ve had some mind-blowing make-up sex. Steve has said things are going to be different. They’ve _communicated_.

So, it doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter.

Maybe it does matter, because if Tony’s honest with himself, Steve’s been giving him orders since the day they all returned. It’s been easy to ignore them, acknowledge them yes, but set them aside because Steve didn’t have the right anymore. It didn’t stop him from trying, and bitterness and resentment made it so much easier to ignore.

That brings Tony up short. Has nothing really changed then? Steve hadn’t had the right to give him commands and expect him to follow them before, not really. He’s all but said as much and just like that everything post-Siberia comes rushing in and something starts to curdle deep in the pit of Tony’s stomach. 

Steve’s pushed Tony, hard, since he got back.

He’s cornered him and stepped into his space and flat out refused to listen every time Tony’s given him a warning to back off. In fact, he can’t think of a single moment where Steve has stopped himself solely for the sake of respecting Tony’s wishes.

It’s always been Bucky.

Bucky’s words cloud his mind like cobwebs. _I knew you better than he did_.

Is that true? Has Steve meant any of what he’d said, or were those Bucky’s words spilling from his mouth? And if it was true, why didn’t he stop? Why keep pushing and forcing Tony to bend, even after he realized that that’s what he’d been doing all along? Where’s the explanation for running roughshod over him all over again here, in New York, a year later and coming on the heels of his so-called revelation?

_I spent a lot of time telling myself if you hadn’t been so stubborn all the damn time…_

Had he been stubborn when Steve had come back? The cards are stacked against him on this one because he’s usually damned stubborn. Except he had good reason here and he’d been clear, every step of the way.

Bucky had understood him. Bucky hadn’t pushed or demanded. He’d waited and let his true colours shine through and look at where they were now. The most bizarre friendship Tony has had to date, with the least likely person.

Oh.

Bucky knows him better than Steve.

The revelation burns his fingertips and he powers down the soldering tip with a curse. DUM-E offers an empathetic whirr, and the fire extinguisher rolls across the ground at his feet.

He switches gears, pulling up holo after holo of new projects waiting for his attention and flips through them at a rapid pace, trying to find something to focus on. Something to quiet his mind while he sequesters away the dread in his stomach, forcing it down until it’s a pressure cooker of emotion waiting to explode.

Tony’s still flipping through an hour or so later when Steve arrives at the doorway of the workshop. Something about his posture must set off alarm bells because Steve hesitates in the entrance and doesn’t step inside.

“Tony? Is everything alright?” The confusion somehow makes him angrier.

By now he’s picked apart every claim Steve has made and he doesn’t need Steve Rogers treating him with kid gloves.

Tony doesn’t look up right away, throwing his wrench down on the worktable and leaning against it, slumped over. White knuckles stare up at him as tension manifests physically in his body.

“You know, you’ve always been a real smooth talker, Rogers.”

“Tony–”

“No, shut up.” He rounds on Steve, who looks shocked and dismayed, arms protective over his chest where he crosses them. Tony knows the feeling. Armour comes in many forms. “You always seem to know exactly what to say, and sometimes I wonder if you just say what you have to just to get what you want. You’re good at it. Pepper’s good at it too, but it’s been a long time since she used it on me.”

“What’s this about?” Steve’s voice is soft and soothing, cajoling even. He feels buttered up and it’s horrible.

“Did you even mean what you said before? Honestly, Steve? Because you had a lot to say about trust and respect and all the things that you did wrong but you don’t actually act that way. No, you haven’t acted that way, not since you got back.”

The look Steve gives him is not unlike the look he gives his battle plans and strategies, eyes working Tony over as if he’s a map into a Hydra base with a special tactic locked somewhere within his skin. It’s all Captain America, cool and composed as ever.

“Something’s happened. I want to understand this, Tony, I do. Can you explain it to me?”

“Damn it!” Tony shouts, slamming his hand down on the countertop. “Stop talking to me in that fucking voice. I’m trying to have a conversation with Steve Rogers. You’ve met him, right? Is he in there, Cap?” The words are barbed and meant to sting.

Steve grits his teeth and there it is. That gets him going.

Anger sparks underneath his cool composure and the tick in his jaw tells Tony that he’s on the right track. He’ll push him further if he needs to, if that’s what it’s going to take to. Steve doesn’t reply, but his breathing changes and betrays him.

“Seriously, nothing?” Tony scoffs, and gives him a pitiful look, shaking his head as his lips press into a grim line. “I thought we had just established that Steve Rogers can choose whether or not he’s going to be a coward.”

“What do you want from me?” Steve shouts at him, arms splayed wide as the façade snaps. An angry red flush spreads across his cheeks all the more obvious when it slips down beneath the collar of his too-white t-shirt. “Do you want to fight? Do you want to yell at me? I don’t even know what’s going on right now Tony, Christ!”

“There he is!” Tony sneers, rounding on him so he’s in his space now. “You’ve said all the right things. Everything I wanted to hear. But I’m having a really hard time believing it because I realized something. You’ve never once listened to me since we got back. You’ve pushed and pushed. How does that fit into your whole trust and respect line, Steve?”

“Because I was–”

“I want you to think, very carefully, about whether or not what you’re going to say to me next is an excuse, Steve. Because I’m having a really hard time deciding whether what you’ve said is true, or if it’s just that Barnes has given you all the right words to make it this far.” He laughs, humourlessly and swallows back the bile. Always with the fucking bile. “You said he doesn’t know me better than you do. Are you really so sure that’s true?”

“It is true! Tony, I know you.” Steve looks torn somewhere between furious and devastated and, well, they’ve always been two sides to the same coin, haven’t they?

“So what, then? You think I don’t know when I don’t want to talk to someone? Or is it that you think that doesn’t actually matter.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what’s it about, damn it? Can’t you just be honest for once in your goddamn life.” It takes everything in him not to cross the space between them and shove him back. At that moment, he wants to hurt him, which isn’t fair. None of this is fair.

He wants to let it all go. But he needs to be sure.

Steve’s jaw twitches and he doesn’t answer.

“Just a bunch of pretty words then, huh Steve? That’s what it all was. Before?” 

“I was scared, alright!” He’s so fucking gorgeous when his control slips away. When it actually lets himself be real, even just for a moment. “I know you wanted to be left alone but I was terrified that if I didn’t keep pushing, I’d just lose you entirely. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. I’ve always just pushed through, that’s what I _do._ I thought maybe one day you’d just listen.”

Steve makes a loud, exasperated noise and runs both hands through his hair, tipping his head back and looking up at the ceiling as if the answers are written on its surface.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with you, Tony. I don’t know how to be the person you need me to be and I’m terrified of fucking this up. Do you understand?”

“I don’t need you to _be_ anything! I want you to listen to me and respect what I have to say, even if you don’t like it.”

“I do, Tony. I do, listen!”

“You don’t! You think you know better than me. You think you know what’s right and you never even consider that maybe sometimes I’m right too. This isn’t going to work if you keep thinking I’m beneath you, Steve.”

Steve freezes up, his arms tightening so severely that Tony can see how his biceps are trembling under the strain. The colour drains out of his face and his mouth opens and closes. Once, twice. When they do come, the words are so quiet he could have missed them. “Do you really think that?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Tony waves a helpless arm between them.

“God you’re– Tony, you’re–” Steve breaks off and gives him a helpless, disbelieving look as if Tony has made an outlandish remark in a made-up language. He gives a slow shake of his head, eyes bringing with something Tony doesn’t understand. “You’re better than me, Tony. I don’t know why you don’t see that. You treat me like I’m a saint, walking around and passing judgement on everyone else. That’s not– I was just trying to get you to give me the time of day. I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know how else to get you to listen.”

Tony huffs a breath. “I gave you the answers. You didn’t bother trying!”

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” Steve cries, desperation so palpable Tony thinks this must be what a caged tiger feels like, padding endlessly in circles, eyes white around the edges with fear. “That fucking terrifies me. I keep asking myself if I say the wrong thing ‘is he going to leave,’ ‘is it all going to fall apart again’ and I can’t take that Tony. I can’t. So if that’s where this is headed then just say it. Say it!”

Beyond incredulous, Tony scoffs and shakes his head with wide eyes, letting his voice drop softer. “You’re a fucking mess.”

“I know that! What do you want from me?”

Tony certainly doesn’t want him as close to tears as he looks at this moment.

The tension melting out of Tony’s body makes him slow. It’s like what he imagines wading through quicksand might feel like, body moving in halted, lagging motions as he reaches up and puts one hand on the side of Steve’s face. For a brief moment, it looks like Steve is going to smack his hand away, but he doesn’t.

“It’s not all black and white, Steve. I’m not going to walk away because we’re having a fight. I want you to be a real person with me. I know it’s hard, I wrote the book on deflection, remember?”

Steve’s teeth grind together under his palm.

“If this is going to work you’ve got to start seeing me for who I am. And you need to let me see you too. I don’t need you to be perfect. Just, admit when you’re not, and start listening to me, okay?”

“I don’t want to screw this up, again.” Steve whispers, eyes welling with tears. He turns his head and presses his mouth into Tony’s palm, eyes drifting shut as the tears fill and slide down over his cheeks. This fear of being alone lives between them, joins them together. It makes everything that much more explosive. And terrifying. “Tony please, don’t let me screw this up again.”

“Listen to me. We are going to screw this up again.” Steve shakes his head in protest. “We are. That’s what we do. But we’ve got to start making plays together, not opposing each other. I need you to talk to me.” He pauses and waits for Steve to meet his eye. “I need you not to be Captain America the second things start to become uncomfortable. Stop hiding behind that.”

“I’m trying.” Steve whispers.

Tony does the only reasonable thing then, bringing his other hand up to cup Steve’s face and tugging him down until he can press their foreheads together. “I know.”

They share deep, ragged breaths, air flowing between them as the inhales draw longer and the steady rhythm slows to rest. If Tony opens his eyes and looks down at his hands, he has no doubt that he’d find one of the cracked shards that’s been missing from their relationship since the beginning. It’s not perfect, it won’t ever be. For now, it’s good enough.

Reset.

Steve rubs his nose against Tony’s, lips brushing against his too limp to be considered a kiss. Tony offers him a real one, letting his tongue gently slide along Steve’s bottom lip in an intimate caress.

“Don’t hide, Steve. Please keep trying.”

“Okay.”

“If you don’t, I’m going to kill you next time.” Steve pulls back slightly and shoots him a pained look. It’s neither the time nor the place, but he means it and Steve probably knows that. “No, I won’t. But I’ll melt down the shield and make it into something else. A set of bookends or something. Don’t think I won’t.” Tony pauses and rolls his eyes with a defeated sigh. “Just keep talking to Barnes, will you?”

Gentle laughter rumbles deep in Steve’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much loved, let me know what you think!


	11. Chapter 11

It’s not perfect after the conversation in Tony’s workshop, but it works well enough.

Over the next few days, Steve lingers in his space when they’re not training. He slips away and joins Tony in the shop, sketching while Tony works. The silence feels important, necessary as they take time to reacquaint themselves with each other’s presence.

They talk openly when they can, and ask for more silence when it’s too much. Steve listens and respects him, even when Tony’s angry. Even when he tests him again, this time in front of the team, because Tony’s not perfect either.

He apologizes later on and Steve, jaw gritted, actually says the words “we’re far from perfect.”

Sometimes Steve looks at him as if he’s terrified the floor will open him up and swallow him whole. As if he can’t bear to take one wrong step because everything will crumble around him but he squares his shoulders when he can. He’s not always honest about what he’s thinking, so Tony pushes him until he talks. In the moments when Steve can’t truly form words, Tony gives and lets him off the hook, kissing him instead.

Positive reinforcement is always a good motivator.

There are precious moments where everything fades away and he finds himself completely present. Like when Steve joins him in bed at night and slides between his sheets. The soft hair of Steve’s legs rasps against Tony’s and he pulls Tony into his arms. Safe and secure, sometimes they fuck, and sometimes they just lie there, luxuriating in each other’s presence.

Tony sleeps. Actually sleeps.

No, he thinks, it’s not perfect. But it could be. One day, maybe.

It all ends too soon, when a massive swirling orange portal appears in his bedroom and Tony’s pulling the blankets up to his chest like a scandalized miss. He doesn’t have much of a choice when Voldemort himself steps out of the portal, Bruce half behind him with bugged out eyes, and tells Tony that he needs him to go with him, that it’s time.

Damned wizards and their secrecy.

In the same breath, Strange tells Steve that the rest of the team is needed in Wakanda. The chances are high that that’s where the attack will take place and T’Challa and the Dora Milaje will need them. In minutes, Wong will be appearing in the living room to escort part of the team through, the rest to arrive by Quinjet as soon as possible. 

Tony glances at him, frantically, as Strange all but glares down at his wristwatch with impatience. Master of time, Tony’s bare ass.

“Steve there’s so much I need to–”

“I know.”

“When it’s over?” Tony presses, shoving his feet into his pants and tugging a shirt, then a sweater over his head. His hair is sticking up at all angles and he can still faintly taste Steve’s spunk in his mouth, but he supposes that doesn’t matter in the face of a universal emergency. A token, for the battle to come.

“The second it’s over.” Steve stumbles into his clothes without his usual perfunctory grace. “I promise, we’re going to sort it all out.”

And if they don’t make it?

The question hangs heavy between them, unspoken. Tony almost asks, he really does, with his mouth opening and closing helplessly. There’s a lot he could say. Is this the time to be saying things?

It feels like the time to be _saying things_.

Strong arms wrap around his shoulders, tugging him in and holding him tight in a crushing grip against Steve’s chest. They cling to each other, desperation and fear crackling the thin threads of their reunion. Steve presses his mouth to Tony’s ear, the side of his throat, the curve of his shoulder.

“Don’t do anything reckless.”

“Don’t be stubborn,” Tony counters.

“Don’t make the sacrifice play.”

“Don’t try to be the hero.” Tony laughs wetly into his chest and fists his hands into the soft creases of his t-shirt. Steve cards his fingers through his hair and Tony tries to savour the feeling.

It’s not fair, really. After all this time, and all the heartache, for them to get just a snippet of what things might be again. But then, if it hadn’t been for Strange and his apocalyptic revelation, Steve wouldn’t even be here in the first place.

It’s not enough for Tony to start liking the asshole. 

“Stark, we really must go.” Strange crosses his arms over his chest.

Tony has to force himself away from Steve, prying his fingers from his shirt and pushing backwards. He tries to commit him to memory, standing tall and beautiful, perfectly fucked out and mussed up from Tony’s hands and mouth all over his body. It hasn’t been this way before. Fear is always present in their line of work. He’s terrified of losing him again.

God, Steve is so beautiful.

“I’m ready.” Tony murmurs thickly.

He follows the wizard through the portal without a second glance.

***

 _“Tony? Tony!”_ Steve’s voice is a whisper under the screaming and screeching whistling of the wind.

“FRIDAY, come on baby, get me some better audio here.” Tony grunts, the pressure of keeping his hold leaving him trembling with effort. The suit is screaming, the air is screaming, somewhere behind him Peter is screaming his way back down to earth but that's good screaming and he’ll be fine. Peter will be safe and everything’s fine. 

_“Tony!”_

“Listen sweetheart, the reception’s not great up here. Fuck, I don’t even really know if you’re going to hear all this before we break the atmosphere.”

_“Up where? Where are you?”_

The air thins around them and Tony climbs, desperately, firing a laser through the ship’s outer layers until he’s pushed through into some kind of access chamber or a vent. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter because FRIDAY has calculated it and Tony _can’t hear Steve_.

“I’m not sure I’m going to make it back, Steve.”

_“Tony?”_

“We don’t do this. But. I just, I have to tell you. And if we get a chance to figure it all out later, I’ll still feel the same–this isn’t a goodbye thing, except maybe it kind of is–God, I hope you can hear me. Can you hear me, honey?”

_“Tony?”_

“I love you. You hear me, you giant, stubborn bastard? I love you and I’ve always loved you, and I forgive you for everything. You have to know that. Steve, come on? Can you hear me? I love you. _Fuck_!”

The line crackles and screeches and Tony’s desperately sealing the hole shut if it’ll just give him a chance to hear something, anything, on the other end of the line. It’s suddenly eerily quiet, save his own heaving gasps, but there’s nothing from Steve except static.

“Sweetheart, please.”

The line cracks out.

“FRI? Can you get him back, baby?” Tony asks, frantic eyes scanning the HUD. There’s no reception. He watches her scan various satellites, trying to pick up a point of contact, anything. But nothing comes back because he’s on a spaceship hurtling to Thor knows where.

In the greater scheme of things, this is really the most fucked up thing that’s happened. Finally getting up the courage to open his damned mouth and he can’t even be sure Steve’s even really heard him.

Then the kid appears behind him on a delicate strand of webbing and the day gets impossibly worse.

***

Nebula is supporting almost all his weight, practically dragging him down the gangway. He’s so, so tired, his body rebelling against the idea that he might survive after he’s already resigned himself to death.

It’s ready to give up now. Rest.

Tony can feel it in the way that his stomach doesn’t register hunger, and the cold has stopped aching in his extremities. The ache in his chest has disappeared too, it hasn’t hurt in days.

He is so tired.

It doesn’t even feel real. That they’re here, that the space woman with flaming hair has found them in time and brought them back. It’s a miracle he doesn’t even deserve.

In the distance, Steve is running towards him. It’s a mirage and it makes him feel hysterical because his brain has played a lot of tricks on him in the last few days, and the tricks are always Steve. Steve holding him, Steve kissing his face, Steve yelling at him be it in anger or in sheer desperation.

He blinks rapidly, over and over again, thinking that this Steve will disappear any second now. Except he draws closer every time Tony opens his eyes and it sounds like Steve is calling his name.

Suddenly he’s right there. Tony’s being wrapped up in beefy, oversized arms and all his weight is suspended in mid-air, limp and all but lifeless in Steve’s grasp. He feels like hell, but there are no words to express it and the tears don’t even bother to come to his eyes.

This must be what it’s like to really be numb, to be empty. The bucket that could be overflowing with joy, seeing Steve again, knowing he’s safe and alive, is overshadowed by the last twenty-one days. Tony can’t stop thinking about the kid.

Everything else before that–well, it feels smaller now and maybe he didn’t deserve that after all.

“I love you. Oh fuck, Tony, I love you.” Steve is murmuring in his ear. It sounds like a lie. Steve doesn’t know what he’s done.

There’s not enough liquid in his body for him to swallow the lump in his throat, so when he speaks his voice is a gruesome croak.

“I lost the kid.”

Steve staggers under the weight of his confession, or at least, Tony thinks he must because a second ago he was upright and now Tony’s on the ground. They’re both on the ground and the grass is wet and dew-drenched. Tony supposes that he should feel cold but his body doesn’t register it. 

“What did I say about being reckless?” Steve demands in a harsh whisper, plastering them together.

“Steve–” Tony chokes on it.

“It’s not your fault, Tony. It’s not.” Steve presses his lips into his ears and speaks in a low tone, so only Tony will hear him as the others start to gather around them. 

Not everyone is there, and Tony wants to scream because there hasn’t been enough time for screaming yet. There’s never going to be enough time for screaming.

Bucky isn’t there. Why isn’t Steve screaming?

“Forgive me.”

Tony will beg him if he has to. Maybe if Steve forgives him, it’ll help. He’ll feel better because at least he’ll still have Steve and he won’t be completely alone. It’s more than he deserves.

He’s lost the kid.

Tony almost misses Steve’s whisper of a response. It’s so quiet and gentle, so unlike the Steve he thought he knew. He’s been expecting Steve to be angry, because Tony’s failed, again, and with such a heavy cost. 

Instead, Steve hands him the benefit of the doubt right up front. “I already have.”

Yes, it’s far more than he deserves, but oh how Tony loves this beautiful, maddening man. Steve’s forgiveness is bittersweet on his tongue and he swallows it down anyways, letting it spread warmth through the hollow space inside him.

“I failed, Tony.”

Tony lifts one shaky hand to the back of Steve’s head. Even running his fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck feels like too great a task. “I love you, anyway.”

It’s been twenty-one days since Tony’s seen the sun rise.

Tomorrow, he’ll watch it come up with tears in his eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so glad that this is finally done. 
> 
> This story wasn't originally going to end on a bittersweet note, but the more I thought about where we were headed, the more I realized it had to. That's the way this kind of love goes, especially a love like this. 
> 
> Thanks for staying with me to the end and please let me know what you think. Know that I cherish every single comment and they've kept me going in moments I've hated the story! 
> 
> A big last thank you to fundamentalblue for her fantastic beta work, and resurrectedhippo's thoughtful comments every step of the way, beginning to end.


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